There was yet another school shooting yesterday. This time, it took place in Benton, Kentucky. Two 15-year old students were killed, and 18 others were injured.
It was the 18th school shooting of this year, as reported by the New York Times, and we are still a week and change away from it being February.
According to an article yesterday by Alan Blinder and Daniel Victor:
On Tuesday, it was a high school in small-town Kentucky. On Monday, a school cafeteria outside Dallas and a charter school parking lot in New Orleans. And before that, a school bus in Iowa, a college campus in Southern California, a high school in Seattle.
Gunfire ringing out in American schools used to be rare, and shocking. Now it seems to happen all the time.
Indeed it does seem to happen all of the time. This recent school shooting has gotten a few seconds on the news each time that I have watched it, on several different networks. That seems to be proof positive that we as a nation have grown desensitized to these mass shootings, and that we hardly even pay attention to them anymore until they reach numbers that are presumably deemed large enough to warrant our attention.
That is a problem.
Not long ago, I was debating a Trump supporter, on again and off again. I said some seriously insulting things about his man, "The Donald." Yet, once I mentioned guns and the rampant gun violence that pervades in the United States today, and suggested that this country could do well be implementing simple, common sense rules to limit gun access like they did in numerous other developed nations following mass shootings. I also mentioned that these countries not only did not become Nazi or Communist style dictatorships with death camps and/or Gulags, as we see so many fear-mongerers promise will happen here, but mentioned that, in fact, those countries largely seem freer than we are here.
That apparently tipped him over, and he has not spoken to me (via social networking, or any other way) since.
So be it.
But it is a problem, whether he, or the President that he supports, acknowledges it or not.
Did Trump acknowledge that gun violence is a major problem in this country? Well, of all the things that he rants about on his silly, petty tweets, I do not recall massive gun violence being one of the things that he ever has felt required urgent action. And yesterday, President Trump did not even acknowledge the school shooting in Kentucky.
That's right. Trump had a busy day again with his tweeting. Here is one thing that added a little perspective to just how significant it was that President Trump did not even so much as acknowledge the school shooting in Kentucky, according to a tweet by Andrew Weinstein last evening:
Today the president of the United States attacked Jim Acosta, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Party, the FBI, and Samsung but couldn’t be bothered to say one word about the tragic school shooting in Kentucky. What a disgrace.
That about sums up the state of the country right now, I think.
Yesterday, I mentioned that I wanted to veer away from discussing Trump anymore, because frankly, I am sick and tired of him. But once again, this blatant imbecility, arrogance, and selfishness just needs to be called out. Trump clearly has his priorities, and it always seems like these priorities are unbelievably, and very transparently, self-serving. When it comes to larger issues, when it comes to what is truly best for the country, he only gets passionate about things that, once again, profit him personally.
What is it about this man that so many millions of people in this country love, anyway? And frankly, what in the hell is wrong with these people? What the hell is wrong with this President?
I am sickened, and once again, humiliated - a feeling that, it seems, is becoming all too common for a growing number of Americans.
For what it's worth, my heart goes out to the students who witnessed, and were surely horrified, by the events in that school yesterday, as well as the family of the victims. Hopefully, someday, we shall overcome whatever the problems and limitations are that are preventing us from finding any real solutions to the gun crisis that we have in this nation.
School Shooting in Kentucky Is Nation’s 11th of Year. It’s Jan. 23.by Alan Blinder and Daniel Victor, Jan. 23, 2018:
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