Tagged: Oregon shooting

So riddle me this: how do we react to another massacre? And yet, given the events of last week in Oregon, what else is worth reacting to?

I guess I’m with Obama and Colbert. The president said we’ve become numb and that’s not a bad observation. Stephen Colbert said that we’ve gotten good at pretending. Something horrific happens, something that could have been prevented, and the clergy and politicians and pundits make their noise and in a news cycle or two, we’re pretending it never happened.

Common sense suggests strategies that deserve exploration. (Gun registration could be administered as driver’s licenses are administered.) Lies get told. (The prez is sending minions in black choppers to take away your guns. The Dems are drafting laws to make firearm ownership illegal. There aren’t enough guns because one for every man, woman and child in the country isn’t enough.) Facts are ignored. (Other first world nations don’t suffer from our epidemic of gun violence.)

Research has shown that most people don’t change their minds even after they admit that the facts are against them. So appealing to sweet reason, it seems, is futile.

What isn’t?