Another Day. Another Mass Shooting in America.

I have been home from a trip for less than a day, and already the news has reported still another mass shooting.

This shooting took place during an Independence Day parade, by a shooter standing on a building rooftop and using -- what else? -- an assault rifle. The 'alleged' shooter is 21 years old, so he fits perfectly into the age group of too many mass killers.

Once again our political 'leaders' will offer their useless 'thoughts and prayers' to the families of the six murdered innocents, and to the two dozen injured. Gun advocates will repeat the tired mantra that 'guns don't kill people, people kill people.' There will be a smattering of calls for tougher gun laws, and as always, nothing will be done. 

Once again, a small minority of misfits adds to the pervasive sense that  nowhere in America is safe. Not schools. Not houses of worship. Not grocery stores. Not shopping malls. Not movie theaters. Not parades. No place in America is safe. I do not want to live in a country where nobody is safe. And I definitely don’t want to live in a country where our impotent public officials are unwilling and unable to make meaningful changes to reduce this risk to human life. Apparently they are so far up the asses of the NRA that they just can’t bring themselves to do anything.

Nobody in this country needs an assault-style rifle for personal protection, or for hunting, or for any other reason. NOBODY. 

The bottom line is, Americans in 2022, as they were in 2021 and in 2020, are simply not safe going about their daily business. Each of us is it risk of being slaughtered by some individual carrying an assault weapon designed to do one thing and one thing only: to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. These are weapons of war. They are designed to kill. I’m sure our founding fathers did not ever envision the day when pretty much anybody can buy an assault rifle. The second amendment, the most holy of all parts of our Constitutional amendments according to the gun nuts, was written when the only weapons available were muzzleloaders capable of firing no more than four rounds per minute.A fully automatic assault weapon can fire 600 rounds per minute.

Depending on the source, the Highland Park mass killing marked either the 309th or the 300 15th mass shooting this year. That’s right. In the first six months of 2022, more than 300 mass shootings have occurred in this country.

So spare me your thoughts and prayers, and do something!