What will it take, America?

Another mass shooting in America. This time the target was Las Vegas, at the very end of a country music festival. 50 dead, more than 400 wounded. So far. [Update 3 hours after posting: 58 dead, at least 515 wounded]

This is madness. What will it take?

The shooter planned this well, somehow bringing an arsenal of weapons of mass murder along with plenty of ammunition – all legally obtained, I’m sure – unnoticed to the 32d floor of a luxury hotel so he could fire down into the crowd at his leisure.

(a home arsenal confiscated by police - not related to the Las Vegas massacre)

This is madness. What will it take?

Witnesses (aka targets) heard the shots and thought it was fireworks for the concert. When the band ran off the stage people started figuring it out, and hunkered down where the stood – still easy targets for the shooter, since nobody knew where the shots were coming from.

This is madness. What will it take?

The GOP – ok, wait, let’s call it what it has become, the Guns Only Party – is so enamored of and dependent on money from the NRA (No Remorse Armaments) to stay in office that they have passed into law measures allowing gun ownership by felons, removing limitations on gun ownership from domestic violence offenders and others, and punishing victims of gun crimes if they sue the manufacturers.

This is madness. What will it take?

This week the GOP has intended to vote on legislation to allow the legal sale of silencers for guns. You know, you’ve seen them in the movies. It’s a device so the hero can kill the other guy without anyone hearing the shot. There’s really no other valid purpose for a silencer, and it has been an illegal device since it was invented. But the GOP wants to change that. Why? Because the NRA wrote the bill to allow such sales, and the GOP just cannot turn down that free money. I wonder if they’ll go ahead with their plans later in the week – I’m sure the NRA will encourage them to. They will spin it somehow to make it sound like a good thing.

(another home arsenal discovered by police - not related to the Las Vegas massacre)

This is madness. What will it take?

The right wing religious zealots who are in lockstep support of Donald Trump, the anti-Christ (no, I don’t mean the mythical figure from the Bible’s Book of Revelations – I mean a man who has lived his life as the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus the Christ) just love to blame hurricanes and earthquakes on the gays, but they never seem to notice the leering face of evil looking back at them from the mirror when another crazed gun nut mows down a few dozen of his fellow citizens.  Who’s to blame for this, they’ll lament?

This is madness. What will it take?

The GOP loves to stir up fear and hatred against Muslims, which is an idiotic thing to do but lots of American idiots who have never met a Muslim continue to fall for it. Trump especially loves to instantly throw out the “terrorist” label whenever anyone abroad is hurt, and criticize the government where it happens, but somehow when domestic terrorists like the Las Vegas shooter kill Americans, Trump and the right wing are awfully quiet on the matter.

This is madness. What will it take?

We’ve had Columbine, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Killeen, Virginia Tech, San Bernardino – to name only a few. We had a Congressman shot earlier this year. Every time, the GOP has sobbed in public, shed a few crocodile tears, said they would pray, and then went right back to doing the NRA’s bidding to make it easier to sell more guns.

This is madness. What will it take?

We are trading our lives for one industry’s profits, folks. Is your life worth it? Is your son or daughter’s life worth it? Is your spouse’s life worth it? Because that is who is paid the price last night in Las Vegas to continue pumping money to the gun industry – wives, husbands, parents, children, friends. Innocent people who came together to enjoy a concert.

This is madness. What will it take?

I will tell you what I think it will take. The GOP will never grow a conscience, and they will never act contrary to their own best interests, which means they will continue to take money and advance the NRA agenda.  The solution is action by you and me and all of us. We each have a very small voice in American politics – the rest of the world reveres this voice, and fights tooth and nail for the right to embrace it, even as most Americans just don’t seem to have time to be bothered with it.

But if you are finally fed up, and you cannot take this lunacy any more, there’s something you can do: VOTE.  Register to vote – take the time, make the effort. And then get off your ass and go vote in November. Every November, and in every election.  Let it be known that you will not vote for any politician – Republican or Democrat – who accepts legal bribes from or supports the NRA’s murderous profiteering off American lives.

Be fed up. We’ve put up with this for far too long. Take a stand, go out, and protest. Support political candidates from either party who will act to do something about this murderous rampage going on in our country, and who will attempt to bring back the civility so quickly stripped away by Trump and his cronies.

I will never again vote for a politician who takes money from the NRA. It’s time to get the NRA out of their enshrined position in our government, where they've been too long and don’t belong.

This is madness. What will it take?

#MurderousNRA  #Resist  #LivesForProfits