Today is Wednesday, March 28, 2023, a day after Tennessee’s worst mass shooting and the 129th (?) shooting so far in 2023. There have actually been more mass shootings than days so far in 2023. This fact is so unthinkable that one has trouble adequately grasping the devastating situation. “In 2022, the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) tracked more than 647 mass shootings in 2022 and 690 in 2021. At this time last year, the country had experienced 113 mass shootings.” These data are cited in an online article by Kiara Alfonseca for abc7news.com entitled “There have been more mass shootings than days in 2023, database shows.”

So far this year, about 12 shootings, one of which can be defined as a mass shooting, have occurred on K-12 school campuses, leaving at least 10 dead and a dozen injured, according to the GVA and local reports.

What has particularly enraged me about the coverage of this latest carnage is the way that alt-right “news” outlets like the New York Post covered it. In today’s front page coverage of the incident, Rupert Murdoch’s “yellow” sheet emblazoned this headline with a picture of the shooter in the foreground: “Transgender killer targets Christian school.” Already, the cochairs of the New York City Council’s LGBTQIA+ Caucus blasted the paper’s cover story describing the Nashville school shooter as transgender. Details are first emerging about the identity of the killer, now identified as 28-year-old Audrey E. Hale. There are now conflicting reports about the victim’s pronouns and gender identity. However, the bastion of far-right bullshit decided to seize on this one nugget of information regarding the young shooter at Covenant School in order to rouse its bigoted readership.

Thus today we have Crystal Hudson of Brooklyn and Tiffany Caban of Queens, who are cochairs of the LGBTQIA+ Caucus, lambasting the paper for its dishonest reporting. They said, “Today’s New York Post cover story is a grave insult to the journalistic profession and those around the world who dedicate their careers to honest reporting.” They went further in an article in Gay City News by Matt Tracy, angrily stating, “The editorial staff’s deliberate choice to insinuate that the alleged shooter’s gender identity was a motive for the shooting is a disgusting attempt to capitalize on a national tragedy in the pursuit of a hateful agenda.”

The LGBTQIA+ Caucus also condemned the paper on a broader level for its coverage of transgender and nonbinary individuals at a time when there are other issues in need of greater attention. The caucus said the Post‘s decision to “further stoke a culture war rather than report on the systemic issues that fuel these tragedies is nothing short of a moral failing.” The cochairs further wrote, “Transgender Americans are far more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators, and the Post‘s shameless scapegoating of this marginalized group will only further the marginalization faced by the transgender community on a daily basis.”

By the way, the Rupert Murdoch rag’s competitor, the Daily News, led its coverage with a far more balanced headline: “6 murdered at school.” At least, they didn’t broadcast the still-as-unconfirmed fact that the shooter was transgender.

What truth-challenged repugnicans fail to recognize in the wake of these shootings is that the majority of these brutal killings are committed by cisgender white men, under 30 years old. This basic fact is mentioned in an online article for Daily Kos by Kerry Eleveld entitled “What Republicans aren’t saying: At least 95% of mass shootings are perpetrated by cisgender men.”

One of those repugnican senators who pounced on the alleged identity of the Nashville shooter is J.D. Vance of Ohio – who I feel should have really lost to his Democratic opponent in the recent senatorial race, Tim Ryan, since he is a rabid Dumpf loyalist – who said, “If early reports are accurate that a trans shooter targeted a Christian school, there needs to be a lot of soul searching on the extreme left.” No, Mr. Vance, whose book Hillbilly Elegy I threw out once I found how vile you became, what is more accurate is that at least 95% of mass shootings are committed by cisgender men, as analyses by both Mother Jones magazine and the Violence Project discovered, it is you who should do a lot more of soul searching since many of these shootings are being committed by young white men, members of your loyal base.

So fixating here on the shooter’s gender identity by those on the far right is just another fucking distraction by these people who would rather scapegoat one minority group rather than address the real issue, which is that anyone of any gender can get their hands on assault weapons in this gun-laden country too easily, and anyone of any freaking gender can use those guns to massacre loads of people with the firepower they have. Here repugnicans would rather “scapegoat a clearly sick and disturbed shooter than regulate the ability of that sick and disturbed shooter to get a gun.” The article goes on to strongly state that it’s “Republicans [who] are singlehandedly perpetrating unabated gun violence in this country.” The writer adds, “As long as they control Congress or have the ability to filibuster legislation in the Senate, the number of Americans and America’s children massacred by guns and assault weapons, in particular, will continue to grow at a breakneck pace.”

And Republicans are still gung-ho in their relentless push to pass antitrans legislation in many state legislatures across the country. It’s like a fucking flood in this country and it shows no sign of ever abating. Until we vote those bums out.

What a sorry state this country is in right now. How does a culture like ours tolerate death after death after 10 murders – or after 27, or 49, or 60? When is this country going to act on guns? “Thoughts and prayers” are not going to swing it anymore.

I just want to mention that I might not be writing my blog tomorrow since Elliot and I are having dinner out with my New York cousins in Manhattan at 7. It depends on what time we get back and how tired I will be then.

Anyway, stay safe and be well.