JD Vance Calls School Shootings 'a Fact of Life'
Really? Does this mean the rest of the world is living in a fairytale?
When Donald Trump’s dopey and eternally weird running mate, JD Vance, heard about the shooting at the high school in Georgia, he did what all brain-dead right-wingers do: He offered up “thoughts and prayers.”
No one needs those thoughts, and while there is nothing wrong with praying, prayer alone won’t solve this crisis. He then said the following:
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Mr. Vance said, adding that he believed gun restrictions were not the way to effectively prevent school shootings. “We have got to bolster security in our schools (A Grim Fact of Life).”
Facts of Life
There is reality. The pop-pop-pop of gunfire piercing the early-morning fog in which many teenage students live out their mornings fretting the uncertainties of adolescence: Did he see me? Why didn’t she wave at me? Am I fat? Does anyone notice the zit on my face? What will I do if my parents divorce?
Wait, what was that? Was that a…(the pops grow louder, and muffled screams can be heard outside in the hallway somewhere nearby.)
Scrambling, it is time to act and not think like the nice man from the police academy told you during freshman orientation. The popping sound grows more determined and seems to scream in a whisper — I’m coming for you. I know all about the drills on what to do when someone is shooting. Do you know why? Because I am one of you. I am a fellow student.
A bullet shatters the window in your classroom door — the rest is a blur.
Four more Americans were gunned down doing something that most of the rest of the world takes for granted: Studying in school. Two teachers were killed and two students. Nine others were wounded and, in the blink of an eye, set off on radically different paths from the ones they imagined just a few moments before a 14-year-old fellow student whose irresponsible father gave access to a weapon of war — an AR rifle. Lunatics on the right will defend the father, who has now been charged with involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children. Soon, Dad and his son will live on the same cell block.
They are alive, though.
The Fairytale
Between 2009 and 2018, there were 288 school shootings in the United States. The rest of the world experienced 33.
Children in the rest of the world don’t prepare for the horror of the approaching pop-pop-pop in the hallway. They seldom hear the echoing screams of their fellow students as sizzling bullets zip through the air and shred growing bodies.
If there was ever any reason to vote for blue across the board, it’s so that maybe we could stop this madness. But, I do fear that if we take serious steps to end the violence, the corrupted SCOTUS will overturn our best efforts — which simply means that SCOTUS, too, needs to be reformed.
The former prosecutor running for president had this to say when she heard about the shooting.
“We’ve got to stop it, and we have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all,” she said. “You know it doesn’t have to be this way (A Grim Fact of Life).”
Donald Trump was, as usual, sympathetic and caring.
“It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here,” he said. “But have to get over it — we have to move forward.”
“So surprising to see it here?” Is a fading Trump residing in Liechtenstein in his mind?
Education in America cannot improve and advance in a fog of fear. We are on the road to a Hell of ignorance and stupidity
The sad thing is that Vance is right that such shootings are a sad fact of life. Where he is wrong is accepting this.