December 17th, 2012
A Letter to America in Response to the Sandy Hook Shootings

Dear America,

We get it, you know. We know that things are rough, what with the global economy and the fiscal cliff and partisanship and all those big, important words and numbers that never quite add up. Being a country of 300 million+ people is hard and complicated and there are so many little things that can go wrong and become big important things, but still:

WHAT THE FUCK?

Keeping children from being gunned down in school isn’t exactly a matter of budgets and ideology and political rhetoric and lobbies. Keeping your citizens safe is basically your most central and important job and you are failing. A big giant FAIL that’s way worse, we assure you, than any drop in credit rating.

But let’s back up. Come at this from a better angle. Let’s break this down for you, simply, because that appears to be the only way you can digest information.

Limited to no access to mental health care + easy access to guns=massacres. For examples, please see:

• The July 20^th shooting at The Dark Knight Rises premiere in Aurora, Colorado;
• The August 5^th shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin;
• The September 27^th shooting at Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis;
• The December 11^th, shooting in Clackmas Town Center, Oregon;
• Friday’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary (which is what of course prompted us to write you).

There were actually a bunch more in the earlier half of 2012, but we’ll leave it at that.

And we know what y’all out there are thinking. It’s so OBVIOUS, duh! It’s not that we need to worry about mental health (because, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get OVER your depression already!) and we certainly don’t need MORE gun control. What we need to prevent more people from taking more guns and slaughtering more people are MORE guns. Just think: if only one of the teachers had had a gun, they would have been able to shoot him in the head in a jiffy and still get the kids to art class on time. Just a gentle reminder, America, but real life is not actually a movie. Not all elementary schools are lucky enough to have Arnold Schwarzenegger as their Kindergarten Cop.

Now a word, America, to your gently morally superior argument that we should be mourning. “Have some respect, already! Don’t politicize the issue so soon!” Okay, well just excuse us a sec while we inform all medical researchers to stop finding a cure for cancer, because someone died of that today and we should be mourning instead of productively working for a solution.

So, yeah, we’ll probably be talking about gun control. Like, RIGHT NOW. So maybe get on that. For instance, maybe question why the shooter’s mother was stockpiling semi-automatic weapons like Doomsday was near? Why are Americans allowed to own a Bushmaster .233 caliber assault rifle that was originally designed for military snipers? Why people even think they NEED weapons designed for the sole purpose of taking another human life? Also, perhaps, just a little concern, given ALL of the prior shootings in 2012: why no one was even a little concerned about gun control in the last election? It was all “Romney was a bully in high school!” And “look, Joe Biden made an accidental awkward slavery reference to a primarily black crowd!” Not, you know, “oh look there are terrible things happening all over the country, we’re putting people’s lives in danger just so we can hand out guns like they’re candy!”

Also, can we talk for a second about autism? Autism is a potentially serious neural developmental disorder affecting millions of Americans and their families. Autism DOES NOT make people plan out and execute a massacre of 20 innocent children and seven adults. Just because the shooter’s brother likes to throw around the word autistic like it’s an everyday character trait and not a diagnosis, doesn’t mean that Adam Lanza was driven to kill 27 people because he was autistic.

Now, to address your news media. Guys, seriously? We get it. A news story this big is a good old pay day for you. If nothing happens in the world, your families would starve. You need your bread buttered somewhere and as sad as it is, no one’s going to tune in on a Saturday just because Hillary Clinton fainted. But really? Chasing down traumatized 5-year-olds for interviews? Advertising your superior coverage of the tragedy with a clip of terrified children and another of the president in tears?  Trying to break news before anyone else, whether or not you had enough proof that it was even true yet? Being SO quick to break the news that you actually accused Ryan Lanza of committing the horrible massacre carried out by his younger brother, prompting death threats? You’re supposed to be serious journalists covering a horrific tragedy, not contestants on The Amazing Race.

We know it’s a lot to process and we don’t really offer much in the way of specific guidance. Consider this a nice slap across the face to end your second amendment loving hysteria. Because, seriously, it is totally fucking unacceptable that any of this is even real and not just on an episode of Criminal Minds.

Sincerely,

The Gabbler