Miracle in Las Vegas

"What happened in Las Vegas was in many ways a miracle."  (Donald J. Trump)

MIRACLE (n) An effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.  (Online Dictionary)

This is why it is pointless even to discuss the prevention of gun violence on a scale comparable to a wartime firefight:  it's a phenomenon we can't even comprehend, much less prevent.  Think loaves and fishes, or the raising of Lazarus.

So, on to tax cuts.

When I turned on the television, the Secretary of State was insisting that he is not about to resign and that he did not call the president a moron.  Reassured on both counts, I opened the computer and found this observation from Sen. John Thune (R-SD):

"I think people are going to have to take steps in their own lives to take precautions to protect themselves and in situations like that, you know, try to stay safe.  As somebody said, 'Get small.'"

Because that's the kind of thing you say when you are required to fellate the NRA for cash, and when you are a complete, utter, absolute, total waste of skin.  (I can do redundancy, too.)  And the ghost of George McGovern, whose seat you pollute, will visit you in the night and replace your precious bodily fluids with Sterno.

Apart from this fatuous advice from Thune, who is well over six feet tall, the response to the most recent exercise of Second Amendment freedoms has been so predictable, we might as well have started it last week:

1.  It's "too soon" to talk about gun control.  Not all the dead have been identified. 

2.  People will get guns regardless, so why have laws at all?  (This bit of chop-logic never applies to drugs, child pornography, abortion or the undocumented, much less white-collar crime.)  Chicago!

3.  Fifty-nine people were killed while listening to music because Society is riven with bad vibes like...disrespect for Trump (Pat Robertson) and not enough religiosity.  Also sanctuary cities, a new entry.
 
4.  ISIS!  They claimed "credit" and Alex Jones, for one, was happy to give it to them.  But surely Jones is one of them.  Wake up, sheeple, before you wake up under SHARIA LAW!

5.  The woman.  Not Hillary (so far) but Stephen Paddock's girlfriend, who was born in the Philippines and was out of the country when he decided to exercise his right to keep and bear arms into the Mandalay Bay Hotel.  Also he sent her a lot of money.  The police have questions and, unlike Adam Lanza's mother and Charles Whitman's wife, she is alive to answer them.

6.  Still too soon.

7.  Steve Scalise, still using crutches, thinks the Second Amendment is a beautiful thing.  No need for any kind of gun control.  How many Defending Your Life incarnations do you get before the universe throws you away?

8.  My personal favorite, the "law-abiding gun owner."  If you plan to go on being law-abiding, why do you need 43 guns, some modified for extra lethality?  Why do law-abiding gun owners need silencers and armor-piercing bullets?  Have deer begun wearing Kevlar?  Are they hoping to bag a rhino in Yosemite?  That Paddock bought his arsenal "legally" is our shame.

9.  Cars and knives and even feet can also kill.  Yes, but most people don't buy a car with the sole intention of murder.  White nationalists and al-Qaeda outliers, but that's a lot less than one percent of car owners.  The rest of us mostly want to get to the store and back.  And cars are regulated like crazy -- registered with the state, inspected annually, insured, and driven by people who have to pass a road test, a written test and a vision test.  Drivers can lose their privileges for being drunk, having a broken tail light, refusing to wear a seat belt -- imagine the outrage if hunters got pulled over in the woods for reeking of beer.  Also, blind people are not allowed to drive, but in Texas they can hunt.  So shut up about how you can kill with insulin, dental floss, flowerpots and kindness, OK?

10.  Mental illness.  He must have been "crazy."  White man, 64, nice house, girlfriend, financially comfortable (according to his brother), no known political affiliations or obsessions, no trouble with the law.  Used to work for the post office, but that was long ago.  His father once made the FBI "Ten Most Wanted" list for bank robbery, where he was described in lurid terms, maybe something there.  Just got a wild hair one day and decided to attack a country music festival (white performers, mostly white crowd, another dead end).  Crazy.  And only last week, who rescinded an executive order from Barack Obama intended (in the absence of Congressional action) to keep guns away from the mentally ill?  Guess.  Go on.

11.  Too late to discuss gun control.  Check back after the 275th mass shooting.  Tomorrow.  And by the way, didn't the first responders do a wonderful job?  Be proud. 

Nevada is an "open carry" state.  That means you can bring your long gun or sidearm to church, to school, to the 7-11, to a football game, to the library, just about anywhere except an NRA meeting.  They don't allow it.  Which is why my features (as Perelman would say) closely resemble a Japanese print.  Or maybe it's a Munch painting.

Senator Thune:  Would you support legislation to outlaw fireworks?  When Paddock opened fire, a lot of witnesses said they thought they were hearing fireworks.  That's why they were slow to "get small," hug the ground, or otherwise try to stay alive.  Would you and your fellow gun whores NRA supporters go that far? 

Everybody has a theory; here's mine for free.  Paddock (like Trump) didn't serve in Vietnam, but he watched the Lynn Novick-Ken Burns documentary and decided it was time for his war.  Any crowd would do.  He had enough weapons and ammo for Charlie Company and he chose to play all the parts himself.  He got up on top of Hamburger Hill and he pretended those people two blocks away were VC.  And then he didn't feel like a draft-dodger any more.  So what's yours?

I thought writing about this would make me feel less like homicide myself.  I know nothing will change, the slaughter will go on, and the cowards and thugs will continue to impose their madness on the majority.  The next time I turn on the television the same depraved imbeciles will be in Washington spewing the same swampwater.  Morons leave and other morons replace them, and wherever they come from the supply never seems to dwindle.  At this minute the fucks are buying out the gun emporia because the voices in their heads have convinced them that the derp state is about to seize their precious toys.  Which means that the next Stephen Paddock is driving home and going online to find the next music festival, farmers' market, horse show or third grade dance recital for the exercise of his Second Amendment rights.  Get small or get dead.  Or both.

No, I don't feel any better.