As a Tennessean, it is odd to see how the murderous rampage

[gratuitous]

2. Agree and disagree

The shooting has dominated the last several news cycles, so I think it has been in the national consciousness. But we have indeed become numbed to people going on shooting sprees. Everything is a rush to "slot" the latest massacre, whether it's whatshisname who was just found guilty in Colorado, or Dylann Roof in Charleston. As soon as we "know" who the shooter is, we slot it into one of several pre-arranged categories and move on.

If you remember the scene in The Big Chill, where the William Hurt character talks about the news reports of casualties from Vietnam, our country's first living room war, the first report elicits the response "My God, that's horrible!" The second report is, "Oh dear." the third report is "I'm hungry." These massacres are coming so thick and fast, we just don't fucking care anymore. We know what causes it, but we don't care enough about our fellow human beings to do anything to stop the next one. Well, there's the fear of the yammerers, too. But we're more scared of the gunhumpers than we are of more people dying needlessly. We apparently think we need the gunhumpers, who have convinced us that we need them.