Rocket Science

 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration flew a helicopter on Mars the other day. Maybe this doesn't seem like a big deal. After all, the trip to the Red Planet took several months and lasted several months. The helicopter flight lasted thirty-nine seconds and didn't go much of anywhere. Except it took place on another planet. 

Hello? Another planet.

Okay, not impressed? Let's try this one: The Centers for Disease Control estimates that Americans are receiving vaccinations at a rate of more than three million doses a day. That means that more than half of the adults in the United States has had at least one of two shots to protect them from COVID-19. That's a pretty Herculean effort considering that just a few months ago those numbers were much smaller. Like way more smaller. Tiny, even. 

Yes, there are more than five hundred million Americans who died before this push for protection became a thing to vaccinate. And the question of wearing a mask can still start an argument. But half the adults in the country have been given at least one shot? 

Be impressed. I am. 

So with all this scientific progress going "Boink" here in these United States, why do you suppose we can't figure out a way to keep its citizens from shooting one another with guns? Why isn't there a force field available to take away the innocent victim factor? Why is it when there is so much energy expended every day trying to preserve life that some angry idjit can end it with a squeeze of a trigger? We can fly a helicopter on a distant planet, but we as a nation seem to be completely flummoxed by what to do with the guns we continue to insist on carrying around "just in case." 

The really sad news here is that since our Founding Fathers first made it part of the Constitution that we needed to bear arms, the technology that accompanied those arms has done nothing but become more sophisticated. And deadly. Not the muzzle-loading musket of the eighteenth century. While we have been working so very hard at figuring out how to fly to other planets and synthesizing antibodies to fight disease we have also discovered new and better ways to kill one another. 

We just haven't applied our big monkey brains to figuring out how to stop killing one another. It cant' be that hard.

It's not rocket science.