Congratulations to The Greatest Nation on Earth!

I heard one reporter melodramatically state: "another great American city saddened by gun violence." I wonder does that idiot recognize the oxymoronic nature of his statement?

"The U.S. is about to experience things that will shock the conscience of even the most immoral of humans." I made that statement a few weeks ago to someone and one of my editors said: "I think we should take Kenyatta's warning seriously." There was a grimness in his voice I had never heard before.

In the legal arena there is a yardstick, if you will, called "shocking the conscience". Today, the U.S. is in "shock" as it reels from daily “mass shootings.” I am not shocked; and, if you are, you have greater shocks ahead. Best you gird your loins or grid your lions. In the months to come, you will see social and civil disruption that shall make you muzzy.

It is quite possible that you will see soldiers in your streets; aside from the usual uniformed thugs. Then there is the silent elephant in the room: some manner of political assassination of which the United States has a long history and is overdue. Tomorrow’s article will elucidate further.

Everyone with any modicum of intelligence is thinking it, but too intimidated to state it. Be that as it may, if you give a dance, you've got to pay the band. I worked my way through my early years of undergraduate school playing gigs at proms and smoky jazz dives with a couple of bands (I had a million different jobs during that time). It’s virtually impossible to make a living in the music business, but it was enough to buy textbooks. For whatever reasons, the negotiations for these menial events always fell upon me. The first thing I demanded was “we must be paid in advance.”

Pay the goddamned band, M.F.!

Like an endless loop of old re-runs, here we go again. Yesterday, in Kansas City. Three days before that a megachurch in Houston. There have been more mass shootings than days in 2024. Over 40,000 people were killed by gun violence in 2023 and six weeks into the new year 3,234 people have lost their lives to gun violence.

Unfortunately, I know what it is to have a person shooting at you with the intent to kill you and I can tell you, first hand and unequivocally, that it is life altering; however liberating the experience.

About seven years ago, as I was about to take my child to school the phone rang. I looked at the caller I.D. and saw it was her school. I knew that something was amiss for them to be calling at 0645, so I immediately answered. It was an "auto-dial" call informing me that there had been a "credible threat" against the school resultant of a student posting threats to "shoot the school up" on social media.

The school is predominately European-American. The call also informed that the police had the young man in custody and there appeared to be no collusion, or any danger to students. I have to admit to asking myself the agonizing question: do they really have this under control, or are they so desperate for money that they are willing to take a chance on my child's life (and the lives of other children).

I was very familiar with the school administration and had utmost confidence in them; nonetheless it was not a good feeling to have. Since my child was enrolled in Advanced Placement (college level) courses, and had an intense workload, a single day out of school would have catastrophic effects. However, what good would any of it be if she were to go and be injured or worse? I must have called the school a dozen times that day; I hope to never be in such a situation again.

My daughter has now just completed her undergraduate work at one of the nation's top private universities. Since she was born I, like every other parent, worried about this and that. Was she properly dressed for the weather. Was she doing well academically and socially. Was I a good parent; which was a huge one because I had to raise her entirely alone, etc.

Further, we were part of a landmark family-law case that involved some terrible events complete with government corruption on a massive scale. To this very day, there is a gag-order on the case, which took place more than 20 years ago and lasted more than a decade. As a direct result of the aforementioned, I was, and am, extremely protective of her.

I put up every conceivable barrier to protect her; something that I think she still does not understand. And, whether she liked it or not, she was protected. However, the one thing I knew I could not do is protect her from the type of horror that has, within the last few hours, visited Texas, Georgia, Missouri and, indeed, California. From the time she was in pre-school, I dreaded feeling what thousands of parents have felt.

I dreaded it when she was in elementary school. I dreaded it when she was in middle school. I dreaded it when she was in high school. I dreaded it when she was in college. I dreaded it when she went to Stanford for a speech and debate competition five years ago. I dreaded it when she went out with friends or to the mall. I dread it now.

This type of psychological stress is unraveling an already frayed society and it has become self-perpetuating creating its own inertia. Too many times, I have written about mass shootings and each time the only thing I can be absolutely certain of is that there will, indeed, be another. Just as there will be another Black Person in the United States murdered by police or some racially animated psychopath. Things that happen no place else on Earth, and on the rare occasion they do they are anomalous.

I am constantly struck that quite often these shootings are committed by very young people; little more than children themselves (ala Kyle Rittenhouse). Sick children come from a sick society. While the United States makes lofty pronouncements about Ukraine, and "democracy", I have to ask myself the question: why doesn't this type thing happen elsewhere on a regular basis (though I know some of the answers)?

People in the United States, especially the "patriots" and jingoists, speak of "American Exceptionalism" and the "greatest nation on earth". Really? No other nation wishes to be the United States; and they are willing to die not to be. I can't blame them.

As you read this column ask yourself, honestly, what would the world look like if every country was the United States? Don't have an answer? I'll tell you what it would look like: an ashtray.

This folly, this delusion that "Americans" have that they are the envy of the world, is as psychotic as that sick bastards that carry out these slaughters and the sick bastards that guarantee they can do it by hollering about the second amendment or, more specifically "the right to bear arms". Only two other countries, on Earth, out of over 200 have anything similar to a second amendment or "right to bear arms" and they are: Guatemala and Mexico. That notwithstanding, Guatemala and Mexico do not have mass shootings on a regular basis, or an irregular basis. I shall let that tub stand on its own while you marinate in its waters.

My mentor, adopted grandmother and one of the loves of my life, Ruby, was an R.N. at the famous Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. She was a “charge-nurse" for the psychiatric unit. We were kindred spirits and, for some inexplicable reason, she thought I was a bright young man and we would have long, deep discussions about a myriad of things. One of the things she would say to me repeatedly is "Rohn, the United States is one big psychiatric ward, and you're going to find this out."

She made the statement matter-of-factly with nary a grin. She was absolutely correct and, as I have written before many times, the United States is a sick society where the inmates run the asylum. Aside from the typical, trite, worn-out, whored-out, cries for "gun control", what will the media, the worthless politicians and the U.S. public do? I know the answer to this question (and so do you). The answer is a two-syllable word with the first syllable being no.

Charlton Heston, whom I believe let that Ten Commandments movie go to his head and actually thought he was Moses, was famous for his NRA advocacy and the commercial/slogan that his gun would never be taken away until it was done out of his "cold dead hands". Outstanding, I'm sure he is without it now. There are more guns in the United States than there are people. If another gun was never sold in the United States, the problem would still persist.

The United States population is so ignorant and gutless that it goes for the same okey-doke over and over again; whether it's fake wars (or reasons to start them) or "gun control". There is a simple solution to the gun problem that does not involve gun confiscation or taking something from the cold, dead hands of some old racist pig. The answer is so simple it proves that this country, its population and its politicians are full of equine-feces.

The answer is, especially for certain types of weapons, to simply stop manufacturing the ammunition. Will there be a "black" market; of course, but it will exponentially cut down the frequency of these tragedies. Funny, I never hear talk of that simple step. Idiots.

Saddest of all is that a week from now a callous, distracted, desensitized and apathetic public will have forgotten. They will be talking about some politician smoking crack or if there is really a man in the moon. But, sooner than later, they will, again, be talking about another shooting.

To those running around with what's left of their hair on fire talking about the Chinese, and the Iranians, and the "terrorists" I say worry not. Nobody has to do anything to you as you are just as likely to cause your own extinction. Without racism and violence the United States does not exist.

To the parents and families of those who have lost, and have yet to lose, loved ones by gun violence, I will spare you my "sincere thoughts and prayers" (good grief). However, I hope you can feel the warmth that I am sending you all through that fastest of broadband networks: the cosmos. For there, but by the grace of God (or whatever is in charge), go I. I wish I could spare you this pain.

Until next time.