In retirement, he can keep busy humping his guns.

Broadcasts explicit invitation brandishing his big weapon.

***********

Sorry; wrong pic.

And this distinction has stood us in good stead! We trail only New Mexico for the state with the most suicides, and we’re always in the top five. When sad ol’ Cowboy Jack doffs his Stetson and draws his Glock 17, tears of uncertainty beading his eyes, you wouldn’t want him to be able to be talked out of it.

A writer about Parkland makes George Orwell’s point for a world I doubt Orwell could have imagined: One where one country alone boasts 400 million privately held guns.

The 911 call transcript, Humvees disgorging SWAT teams, witnesses hugging and weeping, ambulances rolling away, candles lit at “memorials.” We never see a body. We never see what a .223 round of ammunition can actually do to a human. It has all been sanitized. When I hear a congressman call for a “moment of silence,” I hear him saying, “I don’t want to talk about this.”

We respond to gun violence in such a manner because the thing of which we speak is so hideous that we need to normalize it.

Guns of course are ubiquitous at frats, but they’re an adjunct to the frat’s extensive drug dealing operation (see pages and pages of guns and frats here), or they’re AK-47s that the lads like to photograph themselves holding, or they’re be-well-son-and-take-care-of-yourself goodbye gifts from Maw and Paw as the little guy heads off to school. And of course they’re notoriously handy when suicide is in the air. All routine American gun use.

Real powpowpow, however, has been thin on the ground. Stuff that draws pledge-blood has been… anemic.

Yes, this Oklahoma State guy (an inter-fraternity council secretary)

used a loaded gun to scare two new fraternity recruits. The victims say (Owen) Hossack pointed the gun at their heads and asked if they would take a bullet for their brothers. Then, police say, he fired the gun …

But I mean big deal nobody got hurt and loyalty is an important value…

*****************

See, if you ask UD the omnipresence of guns, alcohol, drugs, teenagers, secret guys-only events, and loyalty tests should mean that America’s budding Stephen Paddocks begin routinely manifesting themselves at our fraternities. By national standards, shooting a gun at two guys’ heads but not killing them is, uh, kid stuff.

On the other hand, there’s evidence that things are escalating to the serious mass shootings UD keeps expecting. New Mexico State University (feast your eyes) is exactly the sort of walking abortion of a school you’d expect to be a first-adopter here, and sure enough they did manage to draw blood at a recent hazing event.

Dozens of students, including Jonathan Sillas, attended the Kappa Sigma fraternity’s initiation event.

As Sillas was leaving, another student, Miguel Altamirano, pulled him to the side and told him to turn around, according to a criminal complaint.

Altamirano pulled out a .40 caliber handgun, held the firearm against Sillas’ leg and pulled the trigger, the complaint states. The bullet went through Sillas’ leg.

Gun-friendly states always use the passive voice. The bullet went through. The shooter did not put the bullet in Sillas’s leg; the bullet decided to go through Sillas’s leg. And note the other thing going on at hazing events: Sadistic tyranny. Pulled him to the side and told him to turn around. Right out of The Story of O. Frat hazing (and sorority hazing) reeks, my dears, of S&M.

Duh. We all know that. It’s about torturing people pathetic enough to be willing to be tortured in order to join your club.

I mean, datz why I keep wondering why no mass killing at Sigma Alpha Epsilon yet! You know they’ve got guns galore, but no one’s gonna confiscate them because that would initiate a massacre of free Americans by the federal government. Little by little, a pledge shooting here and a pledge shooting there, we’re inching toward mass murder at an American university fraternity. Just be patient.

Whether it’s autumn or winter, young mass murder’s always in season at Texas A&M Commerce and environs. Those of us trying to follow today’s double homicide among the impulsive tyke demographic were sent over to last October’s bloodbath among the babes. So that’s… October, November, December, January… We almost made it through three months without a big ol’ Texas A&M killing.

Now this one, UD‘s thinking, probably involves Commerce having admitted a mentally unstable freshman… This sorta little feller, say… Down Texas way a man – even a nineteen year old man – ain’t raised to go all boohoo and talk to some counselor or what have you. In our manly states (Texas, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska) you tend to deal with your problems by killing yourself (an extremely popular thing) and/or killing other people but the point is it’s gonna be something with a gun. Montana has the highest suicide rate in the nation and I think there’s like ten psychiatrists in the state. Who needs a shrink when you have a schwarzlose?

****************

I was wrong. A random thug, from whom his ex-girlfriend (who was visiting her sister, a student at Commerce) should have been given protection (a career criminal, he was released from jail when he, uh, shouldn’t have been) killed the ex-girlfriend and her sister. Specifically, he was

free on bond related to an alleged assault family violence incident that took place last week. The report was filed by Abbaney Matts, one of the shooting victims.

... Abbaney said Smith assaulted her Jan. 26 … with a frying pan, lamp and then pulled out a knife …. Though she was not hospitalized, Abbaney reported injuries to the right side of her head, her eyes and had red marks and abrasions after the alleged attack.

[Jacques Dshawn] Smith was arrested and an emergency protective order was issued on Abbaney’s behalf. Smith was freed Jan. 29 after posting $15,000 bond.

… Smith has a string of priors dating back four years with charges including evading arrest, theft and aggravated robbery.

Three whole days in custody! I’m sure Abbaney’s surviving family feels real good about that.

Some people claim it wasn’t accidental. The 16-year-old shooter shot a fellow student right in the chest, has a reputation as a bully, and isn’t cooperating with authorities.

And the student who wrote the opinion piece I quote in my headline adds another element to the story: Already, in the first semester of the year, there have been “multiple incidents” of students bringing guns to school. This was just the first incident to end with someone dead.

Wow.

… it proclaims over and over again on the Bellaire, Texas website.

But hey.

It’s Texas.

The mayor is “utterly shocked” you can’t go to high school in Bellaire without risking a fatal gunshot wound. But what does Don’t Mess With Texas mean? It’s means Texas has more registered guns than anyplace else in America.

And hyuk! That’s just registered guns!

What I’m trying to say is Texas has a lot of guns and Texas is always talking about guns and showing off guns and taking guns to church and all and how utterly shocking that the state is one big ol’ shootout.

**********

The details are just great. Little kid brings loaded gun to school; shows other little kid. Shoots other little kid to death.

… spray.

Glock.

… mawnin. As in much of the rest of the world, mass shooting is the way Americans celebrate ball games. (Southern won the game by doing what it had to do. Congrats!)

Already eighteen and only just bagged your first murder? This is America! This is Bama! Remember: There are competing states. I’m gonna assume you’ve already bagged a bunch, but only got caught for this one.

Only 13 years old and already so confident an AR-15 marksman he’s about to kill his whole middle school!

Here’s a headline with a whiff of the obsolete. Not long from now, parents will recall for their children the quaint practice of suspending football games when people in the stands or on the field initiated mass shootings. “Now of course they play right on through it – couldn’t have youth football if you suspended every game where some little fella took out his AR-15! … People still scatter. But as soon as the shooter’s finished, everyone comes back to the stadium. And something I’ve noticed is that there’s an excitement factor, a wake-up factor – like the guys on the field and the people in the stands are all shook up – but in a good way – after the shooting. The players are sharper; the fans are more enthusiastic. The whole thing feels more real; bleeding children remind the crowd of the preciousness of life and how lucky they are to be here, on a sunny day, watching football.”