America the insane, continued

 We went to a high school graduation party the other day.

It was for the daughter of good friends and there were food and drinks in ice-choked coolers and a house stuffed with people, and a gentle greyhound named Santa. And, in the backyard, a tent with tables and chairs beneath and the graduate herself, who endured many congratulations.

What there was not were gunshots and screaming and young people fleeing, some still in their gowns and mortarboards.

That's what happened in Virginia the other day, and finally our American insanity broke me. I can't tell you why, because in Calibration Nation this happens damn near every day. Someone pulls out a gun and opens fire, and then there is blood and death and anguish and people like me telling you ... well, how insane it all is.

Maybe it was the sheer grotesqueness of it that finally got me. No one is supposed to go to his or her high school graduation and wind up dodging bullets. No one is supposed to do anything but laugh and hug their friends and pose with their proud parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles for endless pictures, and celebrate the beginning of a future that in that moment seems limitless.

Who brings a gun to such an occasion? Who harbors such hate in his heart he goes to a freaking high school graduation and turns it into a war zone? Who shoots seven people and kills two of them -- a father and his graduate son -- on what should be one of the happiest days of their lives?

I don't know who the father and son were, but maybe there was going to be a celebration  back at their house, too. Maybe there would be food and cold drinks and a dog and a tent in the backyard with chairs and tables, and many congratulations.

Now there is only heartache and mourning and two more snuffed lives.

And, meanwhile, in Ohio, there's a bill in the lege that would exempt guns and ammunition from state sales tax, making firearms EVEN MORE AFFORDABLE for Joe and Jill and high school graduation shooters. Can no money down, easy credit terms be far behind?

And again I say it: This country. Is. Insane.