Once more, with or without feeling

This is what happens...

• Senseless violent tragedy, innocent people murdered
• Expressions of deep sadness 
• Expressions of anger, punctuated by cries of "Enough!"
• Equally angry deflection by hobbyists; "It's not the hobby, it's X, Y and/or Z or something else. Also, constitutional rights."
• Unleash the memes!
• The mentally ill are blamed
• The mentally ill are all like, "Hey, don't put this on us. We're doing the best we can over here"
• Victims remain dead
• Hobbyists depicted by opponents as bloodthirsty and paranoid
• Opponents depicted by hobbyists as gutless and oppressive
• Each side accuses the other of being ignorant and what's wrong with America
• Obama's level of culpability is debated
• Update on victims status: still dead
• Rinse, repeat

Apparently, since this is all that ever happens, every single time, we're okay with it. Shhh! Shhh! Don't protest to the contrary; regardless of what "side" you're on and whatever flavor of rhetoric you prefer, your (actually, our) actions speak much, much louder than words.
Of course you say you're sad about it because that's what you're supposed to say. I don't mean to impugn anyone's sincerity; if you express sadness over these things, I'm sure you mean it. After all, nobody who isn't a true sociopath likes it when innocent people are killed, and in spite of my opposition to gun hobbyists, in no way do I believe they're sociopaths. The fact of the matter is this is the way we have chosen to live and in spite of the occasional unpleasant incident, overall we're fine with it. We must be; we totally tolerate it. Sure, we bitch about it but that's as far as it goes. Let's just cut all the bullshit and at least admit that. 

What's a human life worth to us? I don't know. What do these go for?

The other day, I saw this posted on Facebook:

The NRA sees this and wonders what's wrong with 11 people.

Woo hoo! A whole fucking day! Talk about lowering the bar. It was posted the day after a road rage incident resulted in a man being murdered in front of his family, so as far as I know, at least it's accurate, so kudos for that, I guess. But 24 hours is the acceptable standard for celebrating an extended period of non-lethal mayhem?

The NRA starts getting antsy around 48 hours

I'm not saying to give up the fight (again, regardless of which side you're on), I'm saying there is no fight. More accurately, all there is is fight. It feels good to stand up to those morons on the other side, whichever side that is, puff out your chest and "take a stand", doesn't it? Gets the blood flowing! You showed them! But that's for you, not for the benefit of anyone else. Let's not pretend the back-and-forth conjecture and debate is anything but that. This is still America, after all. We have a system that allows us to pretty much have whatever we want, including the ability to change things, and if we really wanted to, we would. The only logical conclusion that can be drawn when we don't is that's not what we really want, so we don't.

We built this city

This is the way of life we have chosen. The indisputable fact of the matter, proven by weight of overwhelming evidence compiled in a rapidly repeating history, is: 

People are going to have guns and from time to time, other people are going to die. 

It's that simple and it's going to stay that way until we decide otherwise.