The Terrible

 Some of you will forgive me if I got busy sharing my outrage about all the other things about which I am currently outraged and did not turn my attention abruptly to the Sunshine State when gunfire broke out. 

I apologize if I gave anyone the idea that simply because a mass shooting takes place in Florida that I won't run up the blood red flag. The two students who died and the six who were injured last Thursday were no less innocent victims than those from any other state in the union where gun violence sadly and routinely breaks out. 

Campus police at Florida State University responded in minutes to the scene where a fellow student murdered two and wounded a half dozen more before he was taken into custody. The Voltaire-like comment that rings out in these incidents was reiterated once again: "Thank goodness law enforcement showed up because who knows how much worse the outcome could have been." 

I would encourage you to stay away from this particular aphorism when discussing mass shootings around any of the victims. Or their families. Or citizens of a country that continues to allow such tragedies to occur because their elected officials continue to believe that the solutions to guns is more guns. 

We have to have guns, right? 

We have to pretend that we're dead when a lunatic with a gun shows up and shoots innocents in hopes of not becoming dead. It's a part of life here in the United States. The part-time Florida resident and full-time convicted felon responded thusly: "These things are terrible. But the gun doesn't do the shooting, the people do. As far as legislation is concerned, this has been going on for a long time. I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment. I ran on the Second Amendment, among many other things, and I will always protect the Second Amendment."

Yes, "these things" are terrible. And rolling back many of the additional restrictions placed on guns by the previous administration won't help make them go away. 

That's a terrible thing.