Q Toon: America, We Hear You

Mass murders in the U.S. continue to outnumber the days on the calendar this year — a statistic made possible by the conjoined statistic that guns outnumber U.S. citizens.

The response by Republican lawmakers is epitomized by Tennessee Congresscretin Tim Burchett, who promised grieving parents after the massacre of six schoolchildren and staff in his state, "We're not going to fix it."

“It’s a horrible, horrible situation, and we’re not going to fix it,” Burchett said. “Criminals are gonna be criminals. And my daddy fought in the Second World War, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said, ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’”

And also by the yahoos in the Nebraska legislature, who are poised to allow concealed carry without permit or gun safety training, thus voiding ordinances in Omaha and Lincoln.

Amid the daily carnage this month, the National Rifle Association held its annual convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Guns and cash exchanged hands in the parking lot with nary a thought given to whether either party to the transaction were a criminal, mentally unstable, a terrorist, or Gov. Kristi Noem's two-year-old kid.

Because, you see, as far as the NRA and its ammosexual fetishists are concerned, guns are not the problem; guns are the solution. And they'll be more than happy to sell you as many and whatever arms you think you need to protect yourself against their other customers.

As a result, in just the past week, two cheerleaders were shot in Texas when one of them got into a car she mistakenly thought was hers in a supermarket parking lot. We also had a scared shitless gun owner in Kansas City firing his gun through his front door and shooting in the head a 16-year-old boy who was supposed to pick up his little brother and sister and had rung the wrong doorbell. And some other shoot-first-think-later homeowner in upstate New York shot dead a 20-year-old woman in a car that was backing out of his driveway when the women in the car realized they weren't at the house of their friend.

Now, I've never had a stranger open my car door by mistake, but there's nothing at all unusual about people using our driveway to turn around instead of driving around the block. It's usually delivery people or neighbors' guests. If unwanted salespersons, or kids looking to earn money mowing lawns come to the door, we tell them we aren't interested, or sometimes we just ignore them.

But then, we don't belong to the NRA.