Thanks to several tips from the community, brothers Shawn and Akein Scott have been arrested in connection with the Mother’s Day mass shootings New Orleans.  “The people chose to be on the side of the young innocent children,” acknowledged Police Chief Ronal Serpas, “instead of on the side of [those] who shot into the crowd.” Well, not all the people.  Sen. Kelly AIyotte (R-NH), who helped defeat a federal background check bill, is squarely on the side of the shooters.  “I have a lot of concerns about that leading to a registry that will create a privacy situation,” offered the Senator, which, for the politically nescient, is merely Beltway code for “as long as the gun lobby gets me reelected, I don’t give a shit who gets killed.”

In response to the school massacre at Sandy Hook — and Virginia Tech and Columbine — states have begun to enact tougher gun laws.  But Texas, in contrast to Colorado, New York, Maryland, etc., is moving conspicuously in the other direction, both urging gun manufacturers to relocate to the Lone Star State and arming school employees with handguns.  A growing number of school districts have approved concealed weapons permits for teachers, janitors and even lunch ladies (as if turkey tetrazzini isn’t lethal enough).  Van ISD Superintendent Don Dunn: “We’re going to start training immediately. It will be every employee who is approved to carry.”  Even, apparently, maintenance worker Glenn Gaddie, who shot himself in the leg during a firearm training session.  Yet the logic of attaining gun safety by increasing the number of weapons involved is deeply flawed.  Recent shootings at Ft. Knox and Ft. Hood (note: in Texas), and those at airports in Jacksonville and Houston (again: Texas) only prove that facilities where armed droves are tasked with safeguarding the citizenry are no more secure than say McDonald’s or a Century movie theater.  Even Kaufman, TX district attorney Mike McLelland found no protection from the dozens of loaded “guns hidden all over the house,” lamented his son, J. R., after McLelland was murdered at home. “When they said that he got shot,” added J. R. wistfully, “it was unbelievable because he was so well-armed and so well-versed in guns.”

That a mass stabbing took place at a Texas community college was perhaps no accident of fate; one could easily surmise it was orchestrated by the NRA to distort public discourse on the Second Amendment.  Like, you know, knives kill, too.  And now that I think about it, there was, at the time, a curious upsurge in published reports of crime-by-cutlery. But all that latent messaging was swiftly obviated by the Boston marathon bombings.  Seizing upon that tragedy, newly elected and certifiably insane NRA president James Porter has plied the lecture circuit to share the organization’s new motto: “Guns don’t kill people, Muslims do.”