Independence Day Mass Shooting

For those who think I am too cynical to doubt if America should only receive praise on July 4, consider this!

Just days after President Biden signed a bipartisan gun bill that, among other things, raises the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 and addresses mental-heath concerns, a deranged shooter killed seven people and wounded 47 others firing with a legally purchased assault weapon into an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois. With AR-15s still very legal and a Supreme Court hell-bent on expanding gun rights,  Independence Day parades are now considered fair game for any nut with an assault weapon.  Kind of makes you feel patriotic, no?  Kind of makes you feel patriotic no is right! 😠 

Incidentally, I went to the Independence Day parade in Montclair, New Jersey - the town's first parade  in three years due to COVID and my first attendance at the parade in four years.  Eerily, the parade route runs a block or two away from Watchung Plaza, where nationwide news was made when a deranged postal worker shot fellow postal employees at a branch post office in 1995.  It's been said that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but I can't be sure that nothing like what happened in Illinois will happen here.

Oh yeah, people with guns celebrated Independence Day in Philadelphia by firing their weapons along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the grand boulevard connecting the Philadelphia Museum of Art with City Hall.  Philadelphia, where the country was founded . . . good grief, Philadelphia had no record of gun violence in the streets on July 4, 1776, and it was in the middle of a war.  Mayor James Kenney told the press that he's so fed up with gun violence in his city . . . he can't wait until his term ends so he can enjoy life for awhile.  

That's leadership?

Jim Tate, the mayor of Philadelphia in the 1960s, who had to deal with civil rights issues and rioting, wouldn't have been so cavalier about something like this.

Of course, I'm biased in saying that . . . Jim Tate was my grandfather's cousin.

Abbott Is Costello

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (below) has overseen a recent loosening of gun restrictions in his state, allowing even teachers to pack a rod on the job.  And yet he had the gall to say this following the shootings on the I-20 corridor between Odessa and Midland:

"Too many Texans are in mourning.  Too many Texans have lost their lives.  The status quo is unacceptable in Texas, and action is needed."

And I can only think, "Gee . . ..  It's too bad he's not in a position to actually do anything about it."

But then, maybe this hapless fool of a governor isn't in a position to do anything about guns in his state.  Because even if he had any actual power - Texas has a weaker governorship than most states, with the legislature setting a good deal of the state's agenda - he'd find it hard to regulate guns when so many people in Texas cherish their constitutional right to bear arms.  And it's an attitude found in so-called liberal states like New Jersey, where I saw a pro-gun window decal in the rear window of a Chevrolet pickup truck.

Abbott won't even admit that the cheap, plentiful supply of high-power firearms is a problem.  Forget the Presidency, Beto O'Rourke should run for governor of Texas in 2022.  Texas ought to have a governor who's ready to use foul language to get things done when the situation calls for it.

The Greatest Mass Shooting In American History

Bullets rained down on a country music festival from a hotel in Las Vegas.  At least 58 dead, maybe more.  More than four hundred injured.  The shooter was a 64-year-old man from a retirement community outside the city.  No indication that it was a political act of terrorism, no motive, no context to put it in.

For those thinking that America has hit rock bottom, I have news for you - life in the United States is never to bad that it can't get any worse.