Breaking news: No one shot at NRA convention

 On Memorial Day we remember the dead in America's wars, including the forever war between the armed and the unarmed.  If you choose to remain unarmed, or own a weapon but fail to carry it to the park, a birthday party, elementary school or the supermarket, that's your problem.  The Constitution does not guarantee the safety of the careless.  

From Taft, Oklahoma, to Benton Harbor, Michigan, from Merced County, California, to Port Richmond, Pennsylvania, America rang with the sound of folks celebrating freedom, unavailable to oppressed people in places like New Zealand and Japan and (soon) Canada.  Also, guns are easier to obtain than fireworks in most places.  Virtually the only gun-free venue was Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center.  We know this because the NRA does not allow either open or concealed carry at its Second Amendment jamborees, even when Trump is not present.  (Presumably the Secret Service had weapons in case someone smuggled in a cream pie or a quince.)  I don't know how free it was in there but it was the safest place in Texas.

Many conventioneers nevertheless felt free to express some incendiary opinions about the mass murder a few hundred miles away in Uvalde.  False flag, of course.  It's because the schools teach children that "our country is a bunch of crap" instead of subjecting them to corporal punishment.  It's gay teachers who aren't armed.  "It's straight out of a playbook," one said darkly, without specifying which football team he had in mind.  It's giving $40 billion to Ukraine instead of turning schools into fortresses.  It's demons.  Mostly, according to the members who would even talk to the "lying media," it's about them -- ostracizing them for their beliefs, making them feel bad because they love to shoot.  Pity them.  (The people who were quoted are all between 53 and 71, which offers a glimmer of hope.  Maybe the young are going to solve this.)  Hollis asserted that the shooter could have killed 21 people just as easily with a baseball bat, which begs the question:  Why didn't he?

The whole weekend was a tribute to the men and women who struggle to write satire against overwhelming odds.  John Cornyn and Greg Abbott were there in spirit and in video, proclaiming their love for armaments and NRA cash.  All embezzlement was forgiven as Wayne LaPierre took to the stage.  Trump entered to "Hold On, I'm Coming," eliciting the wrath of David Porter and the estate of Isaac Hayes.  He proceeded to read the names of the Uvalde victims with the incomprehension he brings to all written material, able to pronounce the words, unable to process them with what an anatomist might call his "brain," and finished with a self-satisfied grin and a dance step.  I'm the most compassionate person in the whole history of the world.  I'm not in favor of giving Ted Cruz anything but a choice of last meals, but at least he physically showed up.

Meanwhile Chuck Schumer swung into action, recessing the Senate for ten days.  The end.