"I do not want your thoughts and prayers.
"Thoughts and prayers will not bring back the dead or unwound the wounded.
"Thoughts and prayers will not prevent the next attack, and we all know the next attack is coming. The only questions are when and where".
-- from "guns" an essay published here on October 4, 2017 in response to the Las Vegas shootings.
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Well, now we know the when and the where.
And we also know the how many.
Add to the 59 in Las Vegas the 27 in Sutherland, Texas.
While we're at it, add to that total all of the gun victims since Las Vegas. According to www.gunviolencearchive.org, since Las Vegas, there have been twenty-eight incidents of mass shootings resulting in twenty-seven deaths and ninety-seven injuries. See, http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting.
So in 36 days, there have been at least 30 mass shooting incidents in this country, resulting in at least 113 deaths and somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 injuries.
And this does not even count the casualties from single, discrete shootings. That, Mr. President, is the real "American Carnage", and nothing is being done about it. There has been some noise about outlawing the use of butt stocks, those wonderful doohickeys that can turn a semi-automatic weapon into an illegal fully automatic weapon, but nothing has been done about this yet. Don't expect it to happen. The NRA has been in all out mode in congress telling those morons that guns don't kill. People do. The idiots are now debating criminalizing people so that the guns are kept safe from them.
But they will not debate criminalizing the actual weapons of mass destruction among us.
Instead, we once again get their empty thoughts and prayers, and the usual platitudes of how in an open society, there is nothing you can do about this. They gnash their teeth and wave their arms, pausing long enough to make sure the cash stuffed in their pockets from the gun lobby doesn't fall out.
But they will not do or even admit the obvious.
They will not admit that if you outlaw guns, then the guns disappear in the vast majority of incidents such as occurred today in Sutherland Springs, and the casualty count goes way down.
They will not admit that if you are too loony to drive a car, you are too loony to own a gun.
They will not admit that if you have already been convicted of a violent felony, you should not be allowed to own a gun. You cannot vote, which last time I looked did not kill anyone, unless you count the last presidential election, but you can walk into a church with an AR-15, one you all but advertised you were going to use, and blow away the congregation.
They will not admit that ownership of a weapon carries with it certain responsibilities that should carry consequences if not lived up to.
They will not admit that manufacture and sales of certain weapons also entail a certain level of responsibility that should also have consequences if not met.
In each and every instance of gun violence, of shootings, there is one single factor present each and every time.
The Gun.
Eliminate the gun, and there is no shooting.
How difficult is this to understand?
So we get to see thoughts and prayers again, and we are now Texas Strong, just as we have been Las Vegas Strong and San Bernadino Strong, and Charlotte Strong and Orlando Strong and.. well, you get the point.
And tonight our hearts are in Texas. Of course they are. How could they not be?
But, once again, our thoughts and prayers, our hearts and minds, and our utter bewilderment will not bring back the dead.
Only our spineless politicians can do anything to at least prevent the next empty thoughts and prayers moment, but you can just about guarantee that the NRA and their rest of the gun lobby buddies are already hard at work.
So once again, until the rest of us wake up, the only questions left are when, where and how many.
Get ready to be Some Town, USA Strong soon.
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