i got really upset about the whole colorado shooting. i posted messages on facebook expressing my anger at the inability of this country to see that there is a problem when an average civilian can assemble an arsenal LEGALLY. i still am incredulous at how- i'm sorry- idiotic people are regarding this issue... i eventually removed my postings, along with the associated comments, which i felt were getting a little heated for my tastes. i know, it's now common sense that you don't get political or religious on facebook. but jeez, to me, that WAS and IS common sense, and i was truly incensed, and shouldn't my friends WANT to know how i really feel? rather than stupid platitudes and to-do lists or just-did lists or pictures of food and places, etc... BUT I GUESS NOT. our country is just a patina of "politeness" concealing a lot of rust and decay.

ANYWAY. here's a comment i read off of charles blow's article in the times called "mourning and mulling". i think it largely expresses some of my own sentiments:

***
We can all by now repeat every argument that has ever been used in the gun control "debate" by either side during the last 25 years.

I mourn those people and their families.

But may we speak honestly? Our country, as a whole, has made an explicit political decision to accept the almost unregulated possession of firearms and, with that, to tolerate a certain number of periodic massacres of innocent people so long as each massacre is appropriately condemned, piously mourned and thoroughly forgotten after two weeks. I am no longer willing to be complicit in that process by participating in the shame and mourning rituals that are an explicit part of this decision.

Unless gun control advocates can figure out a way or summon the will to get a lot of other people in this country to support gun control then I will no longer participate in "national conversations," great debates or mourning rituals. There is no debate. Sometimes the decision gets made. It's been made.

If someone can suggest to me a political strategy to get gun control passed in both Congress and the state legislatures, I will be there. If not, then I will use my time and energy to support another important cause. But I will not participate in this ritual anymore.
***

there you go.