my hometown

I mentioned here a decade ago that I'm from Midland in west Texas. They made the news this weekend. Have you heard what happened? Let me give you a clue: "white, male, 30s". Now can you guess?  I suppose we need to reset the clock on the USA mass shooting timer.

The Onion reprints exactly the same article whenever they note yet another mass shooting.  They change only a few details for each particular occasion, like the name of the fictitious person they quote after each massacre.

In the hours following a violent rampage in [STATE] in which a lone attacker killed [X] individuals and injured [Y] others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded [DAY] that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said [STATE] resident [PERSON NAME], echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past [Z] years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1836949715 (2019 Aug 04, Dayton, OH)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1836949580 (2019 Aug 04, El Paso, TX)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1835173950 (2019 Jun 01, Virginia Beach, VA)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1830308976 (2018 Nov 08, Thousand Oaks, CA)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1830073842 (2018 Oct 29, Pittsburgh, PA)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1829032821 (2018 Sep 13, Bakersfield, CA)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1826142891 (2018 May 18, Sante Fe, TX)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1823016659 (2018 Feb 14, Parkland, FL)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1820163660 (2017 Nov 05, Sutherland Springs, TX)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819580358 (2017 Oct 02, Las Vegas, NV)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819578474 (2015 Dec 03, San Bernardino, CA)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819578287 (2015 Oct 01, Roseburg, OR)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819577935 (2015 June 17, Charleston, SC)
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819576527 (2014 May 27, Isla Vista, CA)

The same article. They don't even publish it on every single mass shooting. They could, though. Every. Single. Time. Like everyone else, I'm sick of hearing "thoughts and prayers". Stop it. Stop making excuses for doing nothing.

Every day in the USA, over 100 people are killed by guns, almost 40,000 people per year. That's a small city... all dead.

• It's not video games. Other countries have video games. They don't have 40,000 people die from gun violence each year.
• It's not mental health. Other counties have mentally unhealthy people. They don't have 40,000 people die from gun violence each year.
• What is different here? It's the easy access to guns. That's what's different. The guns are killing us.
• Even when they don't kill, they're hurting us. Each year, over 100,000 people are injured due to gunshot. That's a large city.

I'm all for a well regulated militia. Our current situation has nothing well-regulated. No more "thoughts and prayers". We need changes to our laws, and we needed it years ago. If you're against that, and if you're against it because you imagine joining some future rebellion to save the people from their government, then I have a serious question for you.

Do you believe that if we had changed our laws 10 years ago to well-regulate gun ownership in the USA then those 400,000 people would still be dead, that those 1,000,000 people would still be injured?

Don't lie to me. Don't lie to yourself. If you think more people would have survived and remained unharmed, then you know that our current laws have to change. You're hiding their blood and their pain beneath your simple desire to own a gun. The bloody massacre already happened, and those guns were the problem instead of the solution.

Personally, I'm willing to respect the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution by elaborating on the requirements mentioned there. I advocate for active State Government militias to hold the responsibility for who can (and cannot) hold weapons for mass killing. I don't care about weapons that can shoot once or twice. More than that amount needed for hunting animals, though, then those gun holders had better spend some of their weekends in militia training where reasonable people can directly observe their skill and their behavior.

Meanwhile... stay tuned for the next mass shooting in the USA. It won't be long.  Maybe The Onion will post another article reprint.