Bang, Bang We're Dead

by Jeff Siegel

Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot to death, and we didn't do anything to stop the violence. John Lennon was shot to death, and we didn't do anything to stop the violence. Thirteen people were shot to death at Columbine, and we didn't do anything to stop the violence. Every day, about 30 Americans are shot to death, and we don't do anything to stop the violence.*

So, why, unfortunately, should we expect the horror in Virginia to stop the violence?

We're addicted to guns and solving our problems with guns and proving our manhood with guns. Or, as the Chicago newspaperman Mike Royko wrote with sad irony, after Bobby Kennedy was shot to death, "Because the right to shoot at you is what I mean by liberty."

And, because it is an addiction, we don't know how badly we're hooked. At this minute, there are probably hundreds of people reading this who are ready to call me names, to question my parentage, to mock my manhood, because I'm telling a truth they don't want to hear. Just like a drunk doesn't want to hear that they are a drunk.

I don't even argue with them anymore, because you can't argue with an addict. Statistics are useless. Pleading is useless. Begging is useless. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped, and we don't want to be helped. We love our guns, and we love how they make us feel. It's not our fault that people are shot to death. It's always someone else's fault – the gun control liberals, the biased news media, the federal government.

But, in the end, it's okay, because we have our guns. And, regardless of anything else that happens, no matter how many people are shot to death, no matter how many tragedies we're forced to witness, that will make it better. Just like a bottle always make the drunk feel better.

*Statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control for 2002 show more than 31 Americans are killed daily by firearms.

(The graphic is from radicalgraphics.org, which offers its material for free.)

Virginia Tech
school shooting
shooting
guns
politics
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