Strike Back

 Are you tired of hearing about the teachers' strike in Oakland?

Well, then you're going to be really tired of reading yet another account of a mass shooting.

This one happened in Farmington, New Mexico. Go ahead and add Farmington to the list of cities and towns in the United In Fear States of America that have experienced the murderous streak of violence propagated by the two to one ratio of guns to humans in our frightened country. 

An eighteen year old murderer walked through a neighborhood in a residential area north of Albuquerque. He killed three and injured six more including a police officer responding to the scene. Law enforcement shot and killed the shooter outside a church.

And just like that, America experiences YAMS (Yet Another Mass Shooting). "At this point it appears to be purely random," Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said in a video message posted on his department's Facebook page, calling the incident "devastating." Devastating, but not particularly newsworthy. No records were set in terms of carnage. The shooter was using "an AR-15 style rifle." No motive was immediately available. 

Eventually the manifesto and political affiliations of the murderer will be available to the media and those who tend to pick at the carcass of the tragedy. Which will give us all a chance to name any other possible threat or cause for these lives. And the lives of fourteen hundred Americans so far this year. Aside from guns. 

Mental health? Big problem. No doubt. Unfortunately the same forces that continue to ignore guns as a root cause of gun violence also tend to cut funding for mental health. Most of those same voices, if prompted, would say that guns should be kept out of the hands of those with mental health issues. But never at the expense of anyone who might want to exercise their "god-given" right to own multiple weapons capable of shredding human beings. You need a license to catch a fish. You need a license to hunt animals. You need a license to drive a car. 

Maybe we could organize some sort of strike on gun violence. I would walk that picket line.