Another Mass Shooting In America? I’ve Gone From Feeling Bad About These Atrocities to Just Turning the Channel

It’s Looking Like Nothing Will Be Done About the Massive Arsenal of  Weapons that Plays Such a Big Hand these  Tragedies, So Look Forward to the Next One.

A  News Commentary by Doug Draper

Posted November 6^th, 2017 on Niagara At Large

“Happiness is a warm gun, bang, bang, shoot, shoot.” – lyrics by former Beatle John Lennon, who was murdered outside his New York City home by a deranged man with a gun in December of 1980.

So here we are again.

It was just a little over a month  ago (this past October 1^st) in Las Vegas, that a home-grown citizen of the United States bullet drilled 58 people to death and wounded more than five hundred others in what is on record, for the moment, as the worst mass shooting in America – and now this past Sunday, November 6^th, we have what CNN headlined in the hours after it happened and witnesses said they could still smell the scent on spilled blood in the air, as America’s “worst mass shooting in a place of worship.”

The total death count as of this posting of 26 men, women and children – the youngest victim was one and a half years old – in a Baptist Church in small-town Texas, all at the hands of a 26-year-old, American-born, ex-U.S. Air Force service man who, despite what authorities have already revealed, had a shopping list of behaviour problems that, among other things, got him dishonourably discharged from a Navy desperate for recruits, still managed to get his hands on assault-style weapons and enough ammunition mow down an army.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did the honourable thing that leaders of friendly nations do following a travesty like this and sent out a statement in the wake of this latest blood bath that read as follows –

“On behalf of all Canadians, I extend my deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed. We also hope for a speedy recovery to all those harmed today.

“It is appalling that this act took place in a place of worship, where worshippers should have felt safe.

“Canada as a nation stands in solidarity with the United States during this difficult time.”

Those are kind and heartfelt words the Prime Minister offered on our behalf. Yet at the risk of sounding a bit callous, I am having a harder and harder time welling up with tears every time this happens. And I say that as much as I feel for the victims, and for my many friends and relatives in the U.S. who I hope the day never comes when something as horrific as this happens to them.

So when the ‘Breaking News’ about this latest mass shooting was announced on a television screen I had turned to CNN this November 5^th, I found myself taking a few minutes out from the housework I was doing to catch the gist of what happened, before shaking my head and turning the TV off.

For me, at least, continuing to follow this murder and mayhem  on the news – year after year and almost every couple of weeks  now – is like watching someone repeatedly smash their head against a brick wall while they ignore your pleas to stop,  even as they fracture bones and have blood clotting down their cheeks.

You reach a point where there are really only two options, you either step in and does something to restrain the person or you throw up your hands and walk away. And since it’s not my country and therefore not my place to step in, about all I’ve got left if I no longer want to witness the gore is option number two.

One person who could step in with a power and authority that could make a huge difference is Donald Trump if he wasn’t so busy being a moron-in-chief and a P.T. Barnum pitchman for the National  Rifle Association (NRA) and the gun and ammo industry.

“This isn’t a gun situation,” Trump insisted in the hours following the Texas church massacre. “This is a mental health problem at the highest level …and it’s very, very sad.”

Something is sad, alright.

Statistics show that the United States has about the same rate of mental illness per capita as Canada, Britain other developed countries around the world, and yet just to take the focus off the astronomically higher rate of gun-related murders in the U.S. so the merchants of these weapons go can keep raking in their blood money, he prefers to characterize the country he’s supposed to lead as an asylum full of deranged killers.

And just as he did after the Las Vegas massacre, he stands by the same old NRA nonsense that now is not the time to talk about gun control and that maybe it would be safer if more people out there had guns.

Five years have passed in the United States since a whole class of Grade 1 children were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and there still aren’t enough representatives in the U.S. Congress and Senate to pass legislation for gun purchasers to go through the same kind of background check required to get a passport or bank loan.

Instead, the Congress is now being pushed by the gun industry to pass legislation legalizing silencers, and why? To make the next church shooting massacre a little quieter for people in prayer?

Chris Murphy, a Democratic Senator for Connecticut whose district includes the Sandy Hook School murder site, wrote the following message to other Senators and members of Congress after the latest church shooting.

“The terrifying fact is that no one is safe so long as Congress chooses to do absolutely nothing in the face of this epidemic,” Murphy wrote.

“As my colleagues go to sleep tonight, they need to think about whether the political support of the gun industry is worth the blood that flows endlessly onto the floors of American churches, elementary schools, movie theaters, and city streets.”

“Ask yourself – how can you claim that you respect human life while choosing fealty to weapons-makers over support for measures favored by the vast majority of your constituents.”

As commendable as Murphy’s words are, one wonders how “vast” the support for more sensible gun laws really is in the United States.

Following almost every mass shooting, including the one at the Sandy Hook School and Las Vegas this past September, reports followed that sales of guns and ammunition, along with the price of gun industry stocks, spiked as countless Americans, fearing that enough government representatives might wake up and pass more sensible gun laws, rush out to the gun stores to load up.

Even among the surviving members of that church in small-town Texas where the latest gun massacre took place, I’d bet my house mortgage that the majority of them are Trump supporters, NRA members and would fight tooth and nail against any move by government to make it harder for anyone other than an immigrant from Mexico or the Middle East from getting their hands on a gun.

So nice try Senator Murphy and sorry to say this, but while Trump and company go on yelling about the need to keep Mexicans and Muslims out of the count, the next mass shooting in America may only be weeks away.

And you won’t have enough colleagues choosing respect for human life over fealty to weapons-makers after that one either.

To watch a video of Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas up to January, 2015 and now Secretary of Energy for the Trump administration,  kissing up to the National Rifle Association during his tenure as government, click on –

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 “A politician thinks of the next election. A leader thinks of the next generation.” – Bernie Sanders