Another day, another gun massacre – such is life in the United States of Gun. We live in a country where 2 per cent of the world’s population lives and where 40% of all the guns on earth are stored. Every day – every day – 90 Americans die from guns – suicides, homicides, matricides, fratricides and patricides. We live in a country where mass murder is just one more story in the busy and crazy life story of the United States of Gun.

No matter the body count, the National Rifle Association (transparent front for the gun manufacturers of America) can be counted on to dismiss the logical evidence that lots of guns in a country means that lots of people will die from guns. And it must be presumed, that President Trump has swilled enough NRA Kool-Aid that he can actually believe that if there were more teachers with guns in Parkland, Florida a few days ago, that somehow there would be fewer deaths. Indeed, the NRA/Trump answer to gun violence is……….we need more guns.

There is something sad and pathetic about a country that endures this carnage year after year, as if death by gun violence is as much a part of nature as hurricanes, tornadoes and blizzards. But in the sad saga of the United States of Gun, the disasters are totally caused by humans and these episodic gun tragedies are simply and truly avoidable. The truth is that without the proliferation of assault weapons and other hand-held weapons of mass destruction, the rain of lead terror would decrease exponentially, and there would be so many men, women and children who wouldn’t have to die.

Meanwhile, the NRA and its enablers have successfully commercialized the Second Amendment to the Constitution so that we are supposed to believe that the so-called Founding Fathers envisioned a nation where anyone with money could buy enough guns to weaponize an entire neighborhood – or gang.

Here is what the Second Amendment actually says:

 “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

 All throughout the Constitution, when individual rights are being established, the language is clear – when “the People” are referenced, it is always speaking about collective or community rights. Further, all rights in the Constitution are subject to conditions (for example, threatening the life of the President is a crime, regardless of the right of freedom of speech).

Nevertheless, over the past few decades, the gun lobby and the NRA have engaged in the distortion of the 2^nd Amendment to boost gun sales and have been enormously successful in achieving their goals. The fact that children, women and men die every day as part of this macabre business model does not seem to be a problem.

One can only hope that at some point there are enough citizens in this country who not only are tired of the carnage – but who also care about the present and the future – so that the United States can join so much of the world that grew tired of senseless slaughter a long time ago.