The Shooting

As many as 27 dead, 18 of them children. Devastating. I can't possibly imagine what it's like to be up there. To be a medic, seeing those children's bodies. To be a teacher or a parent. Good Lord.

Of course we're a long way from knowing anything about circumstances under which the shooter got his gun(s). It will probably turn out, or at least it usually does, that the person obtained the guns legally and stricter laws wouldn't necessarily have prevented blah blah blah.

But whatever is determined on that front, in a broader sense our culture glorifies these fantasies--not of shooting children, obviously, we're not that far gone yet, but revenge fantasies that involve blasting people to bits with guns. It's sick and quite unique among advanced countries. Our society, led in this direction by the people and forces with whom we're all familiar, fundamentally considers deaths like today's worth the price of keeping these demented fantasies alive. That's the sad truth.

I just heard on the WABC live stream I have on my computer that parents are right now waiting outside a firehouse where children are gathered. Is my child in there, safe and alive? Imagine that one. I hope to God that finally, this event changes things. Please add updates and your thoughts to the thread below.

UPDATE: I just saw a tweet from HuffPo's Ryan Grim that read: "Gun control advocates -- or anti-massacre activists -- will be holding a direct-action protest at the White House at 4:30 today." That's good. Anti-massacre activists. That's a name-change I wholly endorse. We are living through a slaughter. The Washington Post noted this afternoon that of the 12 deadliest attacks in US history, six--six--have occured in the last five years. We are living in an era of slaughter. I admit to having thrown up my own hands against the NRA, arguing that they have too much power and it wasn't worth the risk to take them on. I'm done with that. We're living in a fucking abbatoir, now drenched in the blood of little children. We have to do something.