Steve Schmidt tweets, “We have reached an hour of insanity in our political discourse. There is an extremist movement in the country. (MAGA). It is built on lies insurrection, religious fanaticism, gun fetishists, racists, violent militias, and conspiracy loons.
Aided and abetted by the current version of the Republican Party. In the wake of the murders in Uvalde, Texas, Republicans have pointed fingers at mental health issues, at reducing the number of doors in schools, arming teachers, and of course making it easier to acquire a gun. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, no stranger to lunacy, tweeted that after 9-11 we didn’t ban planes. However, Jayne Mansfield was killed when her car ran under a truck. DOT bars were installed on all trucks. After seven people were killed by a serial killer poisoning Tylenol caplets, tamper-proof openings appeared on consumable items. After one person attempted to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb, all air travelers have to remove their shoes before boarding. Gun violence kills an average of 168 people every two days, but Republicans and MAGA worshippers won’t consider firearm restrictions.
What Happened at Uvalde?
Apparently the gunmen gained entrance to the school, entered one fourth-grade classroom and murdered two teachers and nineteen children. Nineteen officers were in the school during the shooting, and despite the 9-1-1 calls from students, they did nothing while the gunman murdered the children.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the unlikely Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike, a last minute entry with 80-1 odds. Rebecca Solnit writes, “One huge problem with human beings in general, but particularly those who suffer from overconfidence, especially because they think they’re in charge, is that we tend to dismiss the unlikely and prepare for what we think of as the likely, even as we live out a history full of black swans and unlikelihoods.”
That an 18 year old shooter with two AR-15s would march into an elementary school and murder children is the most unlikely of all scenarios, except that like Rich Strike’s victory, it happened.
What isn’t unlikely?
That Republicans will do anything. After all, there’s no way to prevent this.