Pop. Guns.

 This week began with an aggrieved about-to-fired bank employee exercising his Second Amendment right to bear arms by bearing arms into his place of imminent unemployment. His score: Five dead, eight wounded.

On the same day, a stone's throw away, someone else exercised their Second Amendment right to bear arms by bearing arms at a community college. His score: One dead, one wounded.

Anywhere else in the world they'd call this uncivilized lunacy. Here in America we just call it "Monday."

The saner among us might also call it lunacy, but we passed lunacy some ways back. We've now arrived at a place where This Week In Mass Shooting is met not just with indifference by certain legislators, but with them actively passing laws to make it even easier for Bank Guy and School Shooter to do his or her thing.

"If we make it as easy as possible for every Tom, Dick, and Mary to arm him or herself like an Army Ranger, no one will ever get shot again!" they cry. 

Seriously. That's the logic at work here.

All of this, mind you, is a long and winding road to the individual I really want to talk about, who is San Antonio Spurs coach and president Gregg Popovich.

He's a Region guy from Indiana who like most Region guys brooks no nonsense, and he's had his fill of the nonsense of dead schoolkids and the lint brains who aid and abet the people who make schoolkids dead.   

And so the other day, in a remarkable 10-minute rant, Pop popped off. At a media availability before the Spurs last game of the season, he mopped the floor with state officials in Texas and Tennessee who continue to help the aggrieved and batshite crazy  stack up bodies.

In particular, he referenced Republican state officials in Tennessee, whose response to three dead kids at Covenant Christian School in Nashville was to label subsequent protests for stiffer gun laws "insurrectionist", and to expel two black Democratic legislators for joining in.

Oh, and about their usual thoughts and prayers ...

"I'm sorry to go on and on, but (Tennessee Governor) Bill Lee: 'I'm closely monitoring the tragic situation. Please join us in prayer'," Pop sneered. "What are you monitoring? They're dead! Children -- they're dead. When I pick up my 6- and 11-year-old grandkids at school, when I'm here at home, on the way it goes through my mind that I hope they're going to be OK."

Meanwhile, in Pop's state of Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has announced he'll pardon the white guy who drove his car into a crowd of people at a Black Lives Matter protest and then shot to death the armed protester who tried to stop him. Daniel Perry was subsequently convicted of murder.

No worries, though, Daniel. The Guv's got your back.

Which I guess means it's OK in Texas to commit murder as long as you murder the right people -- i.e., those with whom you differ ideologically.

Good. Lord. In heaven.

"You know, these people, they think we're stupid -- Republican and Democratic alike," Gregg Popovich said the other day. "But they might be right because they get away with that crap. They tell us things about prayers and you know, their offices are monitoring this stuff, like I said. 

"Get away from me. Stop all the bull****. Stop talking down to us. We're not stupid, but they will do it to keep their jobs."

Amen.