Today is Wednesday, May 25, 2022. I just heard that there are more guns manufactured in this country than cars, a fact just cited by Chris Hayes on his MSNBC program tonight. Guns are now the leading cause of death for children and young adults as well. We’ve made this country less safe for our precious little ones in the ensuing years as more and more violent people use guns in mass shootings. The United States is, without doubt, the gun country of the world! Is this something we should be proud of – I would hope not! But statistics do bear out this stunning fact: There are more guns than people in this gun-obsessed country. As always, there is no political will to do anything about it. One deplorable side, the repugnican side, always hauls out the same old tropes when there is an incident of this magnitude taking place in our schools. Finally, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough called this pathetic side out for the “bullshit” arguments they raise whenever there is a mass shooting and the fear they engender in “freaks” who hoard firearms.

An online article on my smartphone covering what Scarborough and his cohosts spent most of today’s edition of MSNBC’s show were railing against appeared in MediaITE by Tommy Christopher entitled “‘It’s Always Bullshit!’ Joe Scarborough Goes Off on Republicans and Fox News Over Gun Rhetoric After Mass Shootings.” He lambasted repugnicans for always suggesting that when a mass shooting occurs, it’s the fear that they’re coming after our handguns if the government imposes a ban on assault weapons, which was deemed as “bullshit” in Scarborough’s words. They do this, the MSNBC host said, so they don’t have to talk about the children who are murdered. Scarborough further said, “They [meaning repugnicans] try to redefine things in a way that never holds them accountable.” Scarborough denounced Fox News for freaking people out for spreading the lie that the government is coming after you to take your guns away. This sort of lie is also spread by the Internet and other platforms, Scarborough noted. We need more louder voices calling out these reprehensible repugnicans whose obligatory response is do absolutely nothing to stem the tide of bloodshed flowing through our schools, malls, churches, synagogues, and supermarkets.

To reinforce the impression that all repugnicans will not support changes to federal gun laws in the wake of the murder of 19 children and two adults in a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, there is an online article in Raw Story by Ray Hartmann entitled “Republican senators show no movement on gun control laws after Uvalde massacre.” If you needed proof of where these power-obsessed individuals stand on this controversial issue, this article should convince you of the whole party’s fecklessness.

For the article, eight Republican senators were interviewed by reporters from the digital journal and, as a whole, they provided no indication that they would support changes to federal gun laws in the wake of this latest mass shooting. The eight were the worst of the worst, in my mind; they include fist-bump insurrectionist Josh Hawley of Missouri, Mitt Romney of Utah, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Rick Scott of Florida, Shelley Moore Caputo of West Virginia, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, and Brett Kavanaugh apologist Susan Collins of Maine. These out-of-touch politicians with most Americans who favor some form of gun control, whether Democrat or Republican, were interviewed briefly as they moved through the corridors of the U.S. Capitol.

The common and weak response from all of them was an expression of sorrow for the victims and their families (“our thoughts and prayers are with the families”), followed by nonspecific suggestions that did not reference firearms control or reduction. None indicated support for federal red-flag laws such as the one advocated last year by President Joe Biden which would give family members and authorities more say over loved ones who show signs of mental instability if they own firearms. Here such firearms would be able to be removed from these family members if they are considered a danger to themselves or to others.

One of those senators, Mitt Romney, it was reported that he received more than $13 million in contributions from the National Rifle Association (NRA), the deplorable organization that peddles more rifles to young shooters like Salvador Ramos who shot up that elementary school in Texas, showed no direction toward supporting a federal response to the situation. Romney was not committal to a federal response with respect to gun control – he’s in the pocket of then lobby, so why should it be surprising that he would not support federal gun legislation now?

The senatorial response I detested more was the one from the senator from Wyoming, John Barrasso (whom I not as familiar with as the other detestable individuals interviewed here), who went on record to repeat the tired, old repugnican trope: “We are strong supporters of the Second Amendment, as opposed to an organization, it’s an amendment which we are committed. (Aren’t you damn tired of hearing these gun-loving persons holding up Second Amendment rights as their God-given right.) The only religion in this country is not belief in God, it’s the belief in the gun! Then this worthless senator actually said this, “It does seem that the Democrats just want to immediately take away people’s guns. They don’t want people to buy, own, or transport legal firearms.” What bullshit! This guy is wallowing in the old tired refrain used by these callous individuals who instill fear in the majority of gun owners across the country!

One senator actually confessed to being fearful of losing his Senate seat if he had the will to support gun control in his state of North Dakota. This was Kevin Cramer who also resorted to holding up the sacrosanct Second Amendment and said it was “best to wait to make major policy decisions.” When he was nudged into admitting that it was now 10 years since the Newtown tragedy with no major new gun laws being passed, he had no response. He also resorted to the other repugnican trope which recognizes the shootings as arising from mental health and addiction issues and saying “we could do more to empower professional therapists and family members to intervene in their [the shooters’] lives.” This is definitely a deflection strategy that doesn’t recognize the awful reality of more guns that need to be outlawed.

Sue Collins of Maine was also noncommittal when it came to supporting a federal red-flag law by saying, “What you have to do is incentivize the states to pass that.” Meaning just pass it on to the states as usual. Which means that most states would probably not support it, anyway.

Another wishy-washy senator, Shelley Moore Caputo of West Virginia, responded this way to supporting gun laws in Congress. She mentioned that Senator Chuck Schumer of New York was going to look toward something bipartisan. She said, “We’ll just have to see what comes from those discussions.” Wouldn’t you say this was a rather pallid response to the burning question of the day? She even refused to answer other questions after providing this wan reply to the reporter’s queries.

Well, there you have it: these eight individual responses to the horror that just occurred gives you a pretty good idea where repugnicans stand with regard to this issue. It’s pretty pathetic, in my view. Don’t you agree?

There was some drama associated with this unfolding terror in Texas when candidate Beto O’Rourke interrupted a lousy news conference being conducted by the gun-loving governor with officials like that despicable Ted “Ooze” standing behind him, when this courageous Texan shouted to the nonplussed governor, “The time to stop the next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing.” Here O’Rourke tapped into the seething frustration felt by millions of Americans over our paralyzed government. O’Rourke also said, “You said this is not predictable. This is totally predictable.”

O’Rourke was addressed by some repugnican asshole who called him a “son of a bitch” on the news clip that I heard. This is what repugnicans do: just get angry and resort to calling someone a name. As he left the room, O’Rourke addressed his rival in the gubernatorial race: “This is on you, until you choose to do something different.” I don’t know about you, but I applaud what Beto did today in interrupting that press conference in which the governor repeated the repugnican mantra over mental issues having to be addressed in the wake of the mass shooting in Uvalde, but did not even suggest federal legislation to stem the tide of assault weapons being bought by 18-year-olds. The bastard, Ted Cruz, told O’Rourke to “sit down.” The interruptor was then led away by officers. O’Rourke lambasted the present governor, saying, “(Abbott) said he was going to do something. He did nothing. In fact, the only thing he did was make it easier to carry a gun in public.”

Remember that this shit of a governor is expected to speak at an NRA convention this Friday in Houston, along with the Terrible Duo of Donald Dumpf and Ted Cruz. To express my outrage over this imminent convocation of deplorables, I’ve signed a petition to demand that the convention be canceled. The petition has been circulating through the Move On organization; I urge everyone out there to sign their names to this petition. Let’s get this unholy meeting stopped before anyone takes center stage to spew more nonsense about owning weapons of mass destruction. If any of these people who are expected to attend this convention had a soul, the assembly would have been canceled by now.

I forgot to mention another outrageous repugnican solution to this madness which is to arm teachers with guns in the classroom! Isn’t this preposterous beyond measure? I remember during the Reign of Dumpf that this ridiculous solution to school shootings was first bandied about, and it was rejected by sane people as being just plain stupid. It’s now being raised again by these soulless repugnicans in the wake of this tragedy. Let’s not accept this bullshit from this party ever again.

Stay safe and be well.