200th mass shooting in 2023 — we will surely wake up to the 201st in just days

This is probably going to be my shortest Medium post ever. Short because there is nothing that I can say that has not been said already. Short because that is the attention span of the nation, of us all, that moves on to the next thing within hours or minutes of such incidents. Next things such as the coronation of a puppet King of a monarchy long gone or the blabberings of an ex-president that never would have been one in a sane world.

Apparently, the latest is that the ritualistic ‘hopes and prayers’ after each such incident are under attack by liberals and the ‘woke’. Ahhh, the non-believers that dare doubt the workings of the almighty. Of course, all the proposals for legislation and control are not the answer — although nobody has got any answer to fix what has been going on for decades in the firstest of the first world. Maybe there is nothing to fix. The deaths, they are just numbers and statistics. Did any one of them belong to the citadels of power, especially on the right side of the aisle?

After all, we can all take pride in universal access to assault rifles if not healthcare for all — ex-convicts and those on probation, avowed supremacists and sex offenders, the mentally ill and the underaged. Back to the news cycle — the spotlight as always is going to be on the perpetrator. It will be painted as a freak case by a nutjob. Nothing to see here, nothing that can be generalized and addressed. Case closed.

I hear that for the first time some of the horrific pictures have made their way to social media. I will not see them — I am not on any of them and even if I were, I cannot and do not need to see the unseeable to be convinced about the need for sanity. I belong to a minority that does not understand the sanctity of anything that takes precedence over lives of people that did nothing but other than being present at the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of them were trying to save their or other people’s children by acting as human shields.

Another day. Another mass shooting. Life as usual.