Book of D: Broken Hearts in Uvalde, TX - Forget "Thoughts and Prayers" - We Need "Policy and Change"

I was prepared to write about tonight’s final episode of “This Is Us,” but the shootings in Uvalde, Texas superseded everything I had hoped to say about the wonderful television series. Instead, I find myself mired in ambiguity and angst. I find myself talking about more needless deaths because of bad policymaking. Those fucking “thoughts and prayers” comments are a cacophony of bullshit cited by heartless, sycophantic politicians who would rather protect the 2^nd amendment than the lives of their constituents by continuing to ignore “policy and change” regarding gun control. It’s freaking madness. The GOP is lame and hellbent on telling children which books they can read, which bathrooms they can use, and which pronouns they can chose instead of protecting them - literally, from guns.

The GOP has a long history of shamelessly trying to convince people that something very sinister is transpiring, and that only the Republicans can save them. OMG. The audacity of these old WASPS. No wonder the younger gens are turning against the “grand old party”: the GOP is nothing but a bunch of old, vile, Jim Crow-loving, racist, angry, scared boys. They would rather take away a woman’s right to choose than to enact sound gun laws. Look, no one wants to take away anyone’s right to bear arms, the thing is that no one needs to have a stockpile of guns, even if it is protected by the 2^nd Amendment, because some right-wing nuts are supposedly scared of the very government they want to control and overthrow. . . remember the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021 (rhet.). Unsettling as it is, the research shows that white men are stockpiling guns mostly because they're anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears. Moreover, people stockpile because they’re mounting some sort of resistance while others get a sordid rise out of a finely tuned machine that can pierce a distant target, cut down an animal or intruder with a single precise shot. For many, it is a bully’s toy of black plastic and metal that delivers a gratifying blast of adrenaline while delivering an imprudent embodiment of an antiquated Americana.