I’m really not sure if poor old Andy Warhol should be blamed for the spate of shootings from sea to bloody sea, but so many of the insignificant little nobodies who have been murdering people must be seeking something resembling the 15 minutes of fame Warhol promised them.
The problem is that too many people are equating infamy with fame. One of my favorite comedians from the late 20th century was Elayne Boosler, who said there really ought to be two rules connected with fame.
— You cannot become famous just for being naked.
— You cannot become famous just for having sex with someone famous.
Of course Boosler was coming at it from a humorous perspective, and there is nothing at all funny about the guy who murdered 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas. He was apparently so messed up that he bought guns and ammunition as soon as he was 18 and went straight to Robb Elementary School and started shooting.
And of course, all the gun nuts have been battling ever since to make the villain of the piece anything but guns.
Before we go any farther here, we need to understand one thing.
If we have reached a point where we are not completely appalled at the murder of children and saying the Second Amendment outweighs dead children, America is over.
Finished.
Kaput.
I wish I could believe that the fact most of the dead were Latino children with names like Flores, Gomez and Rodriguez didn’t make them any less valuable than Anglo kids named Smith or Jones.
I wish I could believe that the fact it’s a little more than 60 miles from Uvalde to the Mexican border didn’t make it more problematic to consider the dead children Americans.
Is that why there were 376 law enforcement officers from 23 different local, state and federal agencies were on the scene and they all waited more than an hour do make any proactive steps? Because hey, why should they have risk their lives to save little Mexican kids?
But don’t worry, little gun nuts. No one will come after your toys. You’ll still have them available for your 2-year-old to shoot and kill his 4-year-old brother. You’ll still have them when you shoot a prowler in your house at 2 a.m. and turn on the lights to see you killed your son sneaking in after curfew.
Hey, your house your rules.
And you may have a beer belly and tiny genitals you haven’t seen in 10 years, but when you’re playing with your guns, you know you’re a real man.
But if you start having thoughts like the guy in Uvalde who told his cousin that he “did not want to live anymore,” and that he would do something people would remember him by, follow these steps:
— Get your gun and load it.
— Put the barrel in your mouth.
— Pull the trigger.
And guess what, friend. You’re not part of the problem. You’re part of the solution.