The mass shootings in America

[amyrose2712]

The mass shootings in America
7 April 2009

Ten years ago this month two students opened fire on their classmates and teachers at Columbine High School near Denver, Colorado, killing 13 and wounding 23 others, before committing suicide. The event, although it was hardly without precedent even then, horrified the nation. Newspaper editors and columnists, self-proclaimed experts on school violence, pundits of various types all weighed in, but their analyses offered little insight.

President Bill Clinton remarked, “Perhaps we may never fully understand.” He added, “Saint Paul reminds us that we all see things in this life through a glass darkly, that we only partly understand what is happening.”

Two years ago, also in April, a student at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia killed 32 people and wounded 17 others, also before turning the weapon on himself. The official experts again provided their generally banal and superficial opinions. President George W. Bush commented, “It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering... In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/pers-a07.shtml

[rrneck]

1. Yep Good piece.

All politics is local
Tip O'neill

Such a state of affairs must be bound up with the decades of political reaction in the US, rooted in economic decline and characterized by the promotion of force as the solution to all problems, the encouragement of militarism and chauvinism, the worship of “free market” ruthlessness and selfishness, and a popular culture pervaded by brutal imagery and lyrics.

Powers that be, your phone is ringing. Can you hear me NOW?

[applegrove]

2. There has to be another way. Gun love doesn' t help anything. Except the GOP.