Newtown, Ct

I wish I had the talent and the capability to sit down today, and pour all the sadness and frustration and insanity I'm feeling into a golden song nugget to share with you all; to make an artful statement that would be meaningful.

Unfortunately I really don't, and so these words are all I've got. I intend to use them, for what little they're worth.

I suppose the truly infuriating thing about this is that it was so easy to see it coming. It's happened, over and over and over like clockwork for years. I'm sick of it. We are all sick of it. It is well beyond time for this bullshit to finally end. In case you might be suffering from short term memory loss:

• 12/14/2012: Newtown, Ct
• 12/11/2012: Portland, OR
• 8/5/2012: Milwaukee, WI
• 7/20/2012: Aurora, CO
• 1/8/2011: Tuscon, AZ

That is just off the top of my head. The horrifying reality is that this problem is much MUCH worse than that. There have been SIXTEEN mass shootings just in 2012 alone: source.

Perversely, In the United States, it is easier to buy a gun and ammunition than it is to see a psychologist. 

We have a culture completely and utterly saturated with violence. We have had photo-realistic videogames which are essentially gamified military training for nearly 20 years, and they've been shockingly realistic for nearly a decade. Kids have grown up spending every spare moment simulating tactical murder. Marinate on that for a minute.

We live in a world where the vast majority of us are instantly connected to each other, about everything. We live in a world where no mistake is ever forgotten. We all do some really stupid shit in puberty, but today our children post about it on facebook, and instagram, and twitter and it never ever goes away.

It's not hard to see how this happens, and yet every damn time it does, the tonedeaf establishment shouts back about our "Second amendment rights" and "politicizing the tragedy". It's time to put an end to that nonsense response.

Regardless of this bastard's motivations, he was able to do it. He should not have been able to do it. That's the problem.

The tired old saying "guns don't kill people" is such a cop out. It's like saying "knives don't cut steak", and while this is technically true, it's the ease of which they kill people (or cut steak) that is the very point of the device.

Like almost everyone in the world, I'm just shaking my head not so much in disbelief -- we can believe it, we've seen it happen so many times before -- but more in despair. How are we ever going to slay this beast? It seems impossible.