Merry Bang Bang

Tis the season that's always the season in America

One night in London while in my hotel room, I thought I heard a pop. You know how sometimes you hear a bang in the distance and wonder if it’s a car backfiring or a gun? This is probably more common in the South, but I’ve heard it my entire life. This time, I started to wonder if it was a gun or a car backfiring and then I realized and thought to myself, “Duh, I’m in England.” Ya see, other nations don’t have as much of a gun fetish as we do here in the States.

Other nations don’t have the same boners for guns we have. They don’t value guns over the lives of children the way we do. As of November 30, there have been 547 mass shootings in 2024 (and the numbers are probably higher) and the shooting in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday was our 83rd school shooting of the year. How many mass shootings did the United Kingdom have this year? One with no deaths.

In the UK, you have to take some vigorous steps before you can own a gun. Some of them include a psychological test, obtaining a certificate from the police, being assessed as to not being dangerous to the public, declaring all criminal convictions, submitting references from people who are not related to you, and HAVE A GOOD REASON to own a gun. The laws vary from state to state to purchase a gun in the United States but in my state of Virginia, you only need to show up at a gun store with an ID and the money to purchase the gun…most of the time. A person does not have to be licensed to sell a gun at gun shows. We call that the “gun show loophole.”

If we had a requirement in the USA that you must give a good reason to own a gun, then nobody in this nation would own an assault rifle because there’s no good reason for any civilian to own one.

So yeah, what I heard that night in London probably was not a gun.

I also traveled to Ireland and Iceland where the gun laws are about as strict as they are in the UK. There were probably a lot of bad things that could have happened to me during my trip, don’t get me started on the haggis in Edinburgh, the black pudding in Liverpool, and having to listen to the endless versions of Wham’s Last Christmas, but being shot was the least likely. I also had to suffer through countless listening of Maria Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, and for some reason, I heard The Safety Dance…TWICE. There were points during my trip when I wanted someone to shoot me. I was in less danger in Dublin of being shot than I was of being struck by a dart. Seriously, they’re intense about the darts.

While they’re playing with darts in Dublin, we’re giving guns to children. At a private Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, a 15-year-old girl killed another student, a teacher, and injured six other students before taking her own life. There are deeper questions as to why she should do that but the larger question is why did she have a gun.

Why did she have a gun? How did this child get a hold of a 9 mm pistol?

President Biden said, “Every child deserves to feel safe in their classroom. Students across our country should be learning how to read and write — not having to learn how to duck and cover.” Unfortunately, Congress can live with children having to learn how to duck and cover.

In January, we’ll be going from a president who asks the important questions to thoughts and prayers from a president (sic) who is incapable of thinking and who doesn’t pray.

Republicans come up with the most simplistic “solutions,” like locking doors, using metal detectors, giving children bulletproof backpacks, putting cops in schools, and even arming teachers rather than focusing on the actual problem…guns.

Guns are the problem. There is no way around this. School shootings in this nation won’t end until we start valuing our children’s lives over guns.

Note: I intended to write and publish this blog earlier, but I had to do a podcast interview I forgot about. That’s today? I received a message reminding me it was happening in 30 minutes, and I ignored it because I get about 20 messages a day that are not important at all, like links to YouTube and Facebook group (I never click those). I took a shower and when I got out, I checked messages and saw that I only had five minutes to get ready…and I was wet and naked. Anyway, I put the blog on hold, did the podcast after putting on pants, saved the internet from seeing my ding-dong, and then was late for a meet-up with a buddy, ate some tacos, and then wrote all this in a pub.

Note on yesterday’s blog: I confused Hunger Games for Game of Thrones yesterday. My bad, but I don’t really care either. I did prove I never watched it. But I apologize for my negligence in not performing due diligence in my GOT/HG research as in, I didn’t do any.

Music note: I listened to The Wall in its entirety.

Drawn in 30 seconds:

Timelapse:

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