21st Century Americana
There was another mass shooting at a shopping mall in Texas, 25 miles north of Dallas. It was the 199th mass shooting of 2023. There have been more mass shootings than days. In total, 14,600 people have been shot and killed in 126 days. 614 of them were children. Death by gun is the leading cause of death for children in America but that doesn’t get to Republicans. If anything, they cling tighter to their guns and their power every time another kid gets shot.
One of the employees who worked at the H&M clothing store in the mall called his dad when the shooting started right outside his store. His dad got there before any EMTs. A good guy without a gun was the first responder. He rushed right into the danger to help those that had been shot. “The first girl I walked up to was crouched down covering her head in the bushes, so I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side and she had no face.”
He found one child alive. “When I rolled the mother over, he came out and I asked him, ‘are you ok,’ and he said, ‘my mom’s hurt, my mom’s hurt.’ So rather than traumatize him any more, I pulled him around the corner, sat him down, he was covered from head to toe like someone had poured blood on him.” His mom was dead.
Employees pulled clothes off of shelves to stop bleeding and dress wounds. Mangled dead bodies laid outside of the mall. Those who weren’t shot were evacuated but they’ll be traumatized forever. Since everybody seems to be armed in Texas, why didn’t somebody take the killer out? Isn’t that why they carry? Doesn’t everybody think they’re gonna get to shoot the bad guy?
Texans own among the most guns per capita of any state. If more guns and fewer gun laws made us safer, Texas would be the safest state. Instead it has high rates of gun suicide and homicide, and is home to 4 of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in the US.
The killer was a neo-Nazi with the last name Garcia. He was an Army gunman who works as a security guard. He wore a Right-Wing Death Squad patch. He killed 8 and injured 7. He would have killed way more if there hadn’t been a cop there who was there for an unrelated reason. The cop shot and killed him.
The press conference was like any other press conference after a mass shooting in Texas. Same rhetoric, different day. Republican state representative Jeff Leach made a scripted appearance and didn’t talk details. He was there for a photo op. When he ran for election, his campaign ad was a photo of him firing a high powered rifle with scope and the words, “Endorsed by the NRA!” He lives a mile away. During his campaign he put a giant banner outside his house, “Endorsed by the NRA.”
Rookie Congressman Keith Self, who represents Allen, was asked on CNN “What now?” Since people say prayers aren’t cutting it, what’s he going to do now? He responded with, “Well those are people don’t believe in an almighty god who is in control of our lives. I’m a Christian.” Is he saying that getting blown away while out shopping is God’s will? Is that what he’s saying? He quickly pivoted to mental health being the problem and that we should stay away from politics and focus on the families. Blah blah blah.
People who respond with mass shootings are a mental illness problem are mentally ill. Praying to God to do something about mass shootings is crazy and lazy. If you want the mass shootings to stop, be a better citizen and vote fucking Republicans the hell out of every office.
Fuck every thought and prayer. Fuck every Republican.
Gun laws might change if people weren’t protected from the carnage. Mass shootings have been normalized by the media because they cover each one just like the other — no dead bodies, no blood. Just a sterilized depiction of 21st Century Americana — cops running with guns drawn, lots of terrorized people running away from the gunfire, loved ones hugging and crying at the perimeter. Every press conference is the same. Only the dates, location, and victims change. Show the bloody shredded bodies on TV. Like Emmett Till’s mom insisting that her son’s funeral be open casket so his photo would end up on the cover of front pages so the world could see what white supremacists did to her son, and like Walter Cronkite showing graphic clips of what war is really like by showing the dead of Vietnam on the evening news, perhaps it’s time that the public no longer be spared the gruesome awful reality of children’s bodies being blown to smithereens. Show it. Show people what they’re voting for.
Bill Clinton’s assault weapons ban reduced mass shooting deaths by 43% but after George W Bush and the Republicans allowed the ban to expire, mass shooting deaths skyrocketed by 239%. Republicans are full of shit when they say that guns don’t kill people.
There were 3 more mass shootings after Allen, Texas this weekend. 1 dead and 3 injured in Newark, New Jersey, 2 teenaged girls were killed in St. Louis and 2 others taken to the hospital, and 1 killed and several injured in a park in Arkansas.
21st Century Americana. Our cultural identity for this period in history will be shaped by guns. The gun nut is an American stereotype that will live on. How will this era be characterized? Chaos. Selfishness. Greed. Hatred. Americana in the last century was an idealized life in the safest, greatest country in the world. So far, the 21st century Americana is nothing to brag about. Everybody could get shot.
