After the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on 14 February 2018, which left 17 people dead and 14 injured, two news stories have marked the occasion:
1) the Florida legislature took up the President Trump-backed initiative to place more armed teachers in schools, and
2) a Georgia teacher barricaded himself inside a classroom with a gun and fired it (luckily, there were no injuries).
The solution to gun violence in a country with almost twice as many guns per capita as any other, and with 25 times the firearm homicide rate compared to other developed countries, appears to be "more guns."
Wednesday also featured "a commitment ceremony" at World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. At the event, worshippers clutched AR-15s - the same weapon used by Parkland shooter Nicolas Cruz, and many other mass murderers - as they doubled over in prayerful ritual.
Several attendees wore crowns of bullets, while one crowned worshipper clutched a gold-painted rifle. A school nearby was closed during the event as a safety precaution. It was an emblem of our national illness, a beautiful grotesque, a fantastic reminder that there is a part of the American population which believes that what exists at the point of a gun is "World Peace" and "Sanctuary".
Reference: Esquire
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