There are a few topics that I typically avoid writing about. Mass shootings are one of those things. I feel there is enough being said about them that nobody needs to hear my uninformed opinion about it.
That’s why I had no intention of writing about the school shooting that happened in Texas a couple days ago. For one thing, everyone and their brother had something to say about it. Another reason is because I am a teacher at an elementary school and I really don’t like to think about this kind of thing happening. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know about it because I was coaching a flag football game. It’s a shame that a great thing like that had to be interrupted with this news on the way back to the school.
Anyway, I was honestly just trying to avoid the news for the majority of the day yesterday. Of course it was the first thing on almost every teacher’s mind at school. I managed to stay away from it for the majority of the school day, but it inevitably came up and really put a damper on the rest of the day.
The real inspiration for this blog came when I got home. As a rule, I stay off of Twitter at work simply because it is draining. When I logged on and saw some of the nonsense that some people were spewing about this tragedy I was absolutely disgusted.
Before I get into that I want to send my thoughts to victims of the shooting. It is something I can’t even imagine going through and I’ll never claim to even come close to feeling anything like it. All I can say is I’m glad the sicko that decided to do this got what he deserved and got blown away by the Texas police.
Now to the point here.
There’s one thing I know about people that a lot of others refuse to believe. People are inherently selfish. It’s a simple fact and usually is relatively harmless. And then we have situations like this and it is despicable to say the least.
The amount of people that not only extended their condolences to victims of this horrible atrocity, but then in the same breath tried to make this about themselves was staggering. And yes, like most things, both sides of the political spectrum were responsible. Whether it be Jake Tapper trying to spin this into a racial incident with absolutely knowledge of anything about it, or Republican Congressman Paul Gosar ranting about the shooter being a “transexual”, both sides are sickening. There’s an old saying in politics that goes, “Don’t let a tragedy go to waste.” Both of these idiots tried to use the senseless killing of students in school to further their particular agenda. Unfortunately, this is to be expected nowadays. These putrid political phonies will use anything to make a damn political point.
What’s even more disturbing is the fuckers in the media all seem to root for this kind of thing to happen. Not only so they can pop a quick rating showing the tragedy, but so they can continue to swing their political bullshit. And yet again, it’s both the left and the right. You saw it in the Boston Globe posting a Twitter thread bragging that they told you this was going to happen years ago. Then posting a bunch of editorials from the past where they were calling for gun control. Then you see the right wingers screaming about how much “worse” it could have been if the police were defunded.
You know what I say to both sides? You're both right. Are you fucking happy now? Kids had to die to prove to you that the solution is always somewhere in the middle.
Yet again, I wasn’t that shocked to hear some of this. It’s unfortunately par for the course on this kind of stuff. Like the great Kirk Minihane said on his podcast, this is just another incident that will spark conversation for a week or two and then nothing will change. Sandy Hook, the Pulse Nightclub, even Columbine didn’t change squat. What makes this any different? Politicians will squabble back and forth and we will all pay for it in the long run.
The really shameful part of this is regular people are starting to try and make this about themselves. Which is an instinct I just don’t understand. The first and only piece of evidence I have to show you is this tweet from WEEI weekend personality Mark Dondero. This moron had this to say just hours after the shooting, “Over the last few years I noticed I pretty much stopped wearing sandals when I would go to a public place. I soon realized I was doing that because in the event of an active shooter, I wanted to be able to move and run faster. Devastating what America has become.”
Well Mark, it is devastating what America has become. Idiots like you on Twitter can make up some bullshit and just shoot it out there to make themselves feel better after kids got blown away. I think it’s clear to anyone with a brain that this is completely fabricated. This troglodyte just wanted to jump on the bandwagon and get some Twitter applause. Thankfully, he got bludgeoned by somewhat intelligent people who called him out for this nonsense.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say this is true (which it’s not). WHy the hell did he need to say this? Does this help anyone? Nope. It just makes Mark feel more self righteous. I bet he thought it would make him seem like some sort of intellectual. In reality, it made him look completely stupid. The amazing part is this self-centered prick hasn’t deleted the tweet and I’m sure will try to defend himself at some point.
This is the real cause of all this kind of stuff. People just try to make stuff about themselves and it escalates further and further, until it evolves into people killing innocent kids and then others using it to improve the way they think of themselves in their own minds.
I’ll just end with this. Politicians, media members and even your average person need to take a good look at what we are doing. This shit is going to keep happening until we can stop making this into a pissing match. But, unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. We’ll keep arguing about stupid things like pieces of cloth on people’s faces and pronouns people want to use, meanwhile kids will keep getting killed for no reason.