Only a revolution in thinking can stay the media,politicians and firearms lobby from having to trot out their well rehearsed lines after every mass shootingWithin the American polity there is a cyclical requiem in the wake of each mass shooting – a predictable collective lament for a calamity that ostensibly everyone regrets and nobody can resolve. Profiles of the victims emerge as reporters opine in front of police tape, wringing every last detail from tear-stained survivors. Gradually facts about the shooter emerge, or followed by endless speculation about his (they are nearly always men) motives before the president calls for prayer and healing.
Everybody knows their lines. With 45 mass shootings already this year they have rehearsed them often enough. Indeed,the tragedy lies not only in the trauma of the victims but in the obvious helplessness of the political course and the hopelessness that the deathly cycle might be broken.
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Source: theguardian.com