Off-topic: "Another"

Store’s pamphlet, USA

“Another ice cream” is a happy thing to hear, “another round of love making” is an exciting thing to have, and “another shooting” is a devastating thing to read. Yet, in the United States millions of dollars are spent on diets to avoid the first thing, on campaigns to prevent people from enjoying the second based on sexual preference, and on politicians to ensure the third never stops.

“Another school shooting” has become as American as apple pie. There are many great things about the United States but then there are other things that are just impossible to wrap one’s head around. We’re talking about a country where showing a breast on television will cause a national hissy fit, where a president’s blow job sessions are reason for impeachment but where children getting massacred obviously continues to be shrugged off, “Oh, another disaster. Now, honey, pass the salt.” The US Constitution states that Americans have the right to own guns and if there’s one thing Americans are sensitive about is doing anything that goes against the holy Constitution – unless the constitution guarantees rights they believe some people shouldn’t have, as in the case of gay marriage, then fuck the cuntstitution.

Other than enforcing a law that supposedly made sense when it was drafted 200 years ago, states (or provinces) in the US largely make their own decisions. In Connecticut, the state where the school shooting took place yesterday, the law allows for people who have gun permits to take their guns into a school if they obtain the school’s permission. Then again, you’re also allowed to carry concealed weapons so it seems pretty darn easy for a mom to drop a revolver in her purse and go have a chat with Johnny’s 3rd grade teacher.

Though the Constitution gives citizens the right to own guns you need to first get a permit. To get a permit you must be at least 21 and you must pass a criminal background check but you won’t be asked if you’re depressed/disturbed and planning a horrible ending for yourself and/or others. Or heavens forbid anyone think (that would be a start really) of the possibility that you might simply sell the gun in the black market and say it was stolen, or that the son you’ve neglected his whole life just might break into your arsenal closet then take the lives of others and his own. Oh no, God bless the Constitution and the multi-billion dollar firearms and ammunition industry!

Gun advocates say people have the right to defend themselves but from whom? Who’s coming to get you? I lived in the USA for 15 years and maybe I was just super lucky but it really didn’t feel like “Mad Max,” though to be fair Americans have taken “Mad Max” to Iraq and other countries.

I’ll just never understand some things about the USA. Too much greed, too little love. Too many guns, too few hugs.