Dear Art,
Well have at it young man.  Give me all your jokes and snarky comments about the horrible shooting in Newtown last week.  Get on your pulpit and give me a heavy handed rant on gun control or mental health reform or something.  Come on funny man show me what you’ve got.  Don’t get bogged down in this too-soon sentimentality bullshit.  Tell me what you really think.
-The American Public

America,
I don’t think I can.  I don’t think I have anything.  The horror of that shooting might simply have overwhelmed my ability to be snarky.  I’ve been linked to articles on sales of $300 bulletproof backpacks going up something like 1200% this weekend and while I would certainly spend that kind of money to save the life of my hypothetical child I would have to either hope they get shot in the back or have the presence of mind to shield themselves with it.  Considering they’ll have 50% of my DNA I don’t know that they can be counted on to do that.  Maybe you’re just paying for peace of mind?  Is $300/kid less or more than magnetic-locking bulletproof glass classroom doors cost?  Why isn’t someone writing these articles?

I also don’t have the energy to start advocating public policy.  I would like to take this moment to call out Mike Huckabee and the American Family Association who both suggested that this shooting was the result of not having prayer in school.  They’re both absolute monsters but who does that even really surprise anymore?  Is it messed up that suggestions on actual policy changes are shouted down as too soon while Mike Huckabee will absolutely not suffer any consequences for that insane comment?  I bet he won’t even apologize.  It’s outrageous and terrible and totally par for the course at this point..

At least a couple people are starting to turn on the NRA.  Joe Manchin, a Democratic senator from West Virginia with an A rating from the NRA, went out on the news this weekend and talked about how he would support a ban on assault weapons or 30 round pistol magazines.  Even if you don’t think this gun violence problem can be solved by tougher regulations or disagree with these two suggestions I hope you could at least support people starting to break from a group that requires lockstep devotion to not even discussing these kind of options.  Kind of like people talking about tax increases during a fiscal “crisis” despite what Grover Norquist says about it.  Except in this case people die quickly from gun violence instead of slowly due to a shredded social safety net but whatever, progress is progress.

Thanks for calling me young though.  As I creep towards 30 I appreciate that more and more.

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