and now we talk about the school shooting

a couple things about this most recent school shooting…

…first off, it was in a small town and NOT a big city or suburb, and a small town in TEXAS no less. a community where everybody hunts, owns guns, and knows each other’s shit. that, believe it or not, does make it a bit different from previous ones. let’s look at the three things i wanted to see happen after parkland:

(none of which have, i’ll quickly add, thanks to nra money and the best government money can buy)

you have to be over twenty-one to buy any gun – this kid was under, but his dad wasn’t and the guns were HIS.

close the gun show loophole – while we don’t know if that’s how this kids dad got these (with the small town factor it’s a distinct possibility) his DAD wasn’t the issue, so that wouldn’t have mattered.

and finally…

let’s not let mentally ill have access to firearms – again, the dad factor.

look – in the end we have to look at the fact that majority of school shootings have three things in common:

1. white
2. male
3. student at that school

it’s true. sure, it wasn’t grade school kids that shot up sandy hook…but by and large these incidents happen at high schools because high school kids are old enough to know how to lock, load, and shoot in most states (admittedly, in texas, and most of the south for that matter, the age skews a good bit lower). the obvious solution appears to be don’t sell guns to white males any more, but seeing as how they’re the ones that write the majority of the laws of the land i do NOT see that happening.

it seems pretty simple – apparently this kid followed nothing but super pro gun folks on instagram and facebook and posted all kinds of hateful shit. did his parents not follow their own kid on social media? i know a couple parents that don’t, but that’s because their kids are grown and post all kinds of shit they don’t like but they can’t do shit about it because their kids are now adults. while they ARE kids? follow the shit out of em – and see who THEY follow. you don’t need to helicopter that shit, but at least know what’s up…if this kids dad had done so, he probably might have broken what seems to be a modern parenting rule and had an actual conversation with his kid.

it’s not that hard – i do it all the time. and i’m just a step parent.

you can do it to!

but then again, i’m a bit of a gemini according to my astrologer and we think communication fixes E V E R Y T H I N G .