Casualties

 North Side High School will play another football game tonight -- maybe the last of its season against undefeated Concord in Class 5A sectional play -- and that is normal, that is everyday, that is Friday night lights and American autumn at its most elemental.

The Legends, however, will be missing one of their own. And that, too, regrettably, is as normal as those Friday night lights, and an America not just for autumn but for all seasons.

The missing Legend, see, died of a gunshot wound to the chest 13 days ago.

It happened at a Halloween party.

The deceased was a North Side athlete who arrived packing a gun, forced his way into the suburban home where the party was being held, and began blazing away until another partygoer pulled out his gun and shot the shooter.

This according to the police report. This from the officers who arrived that night to find a war zone, with one North Side student dead and nine others wounded.

And how many times have we seen this?

How many shootouts at the OK Corral or a Halloween party or a supermarket or an elementary school does it take before we become numb to it, before it becomes just part of the day-to-day American tapestry?

Before, in other words, it becomes normal?

I've got news for you, or perhaps not news.

We passed that mile marker a ways back.

Normal in America now is children shooting children at a Halloween party, and grief counselors at high schools, and looking up at Walmart and seeing some GI Jethro with an AR-15 on his back. 

It's form-letter thoughts and prayers from politicians who apparently think this should  be normal, and from at least one vice-presidential candidate who says, well, yeah, that's just America now, and we just need to get used to it.

It's road rage that turns into a shooting gallery because of course both the principals are carrying  ... and hysterical cries of "They're comin' for our guns!" whenever someone suggests maybe we ought to make it a little harder for children to turn a party into the Earps vs. the Clantons ... and more thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers.

And body counts, body counts, body counts.

The Blob doesn't have a lot of articles of faith, but one of them has always been that we get the country we deserve in a democratic republic. And so, yes, this is apparently the country we deserve, because we keep electing representatives who at the very least are comfortable with it. And who think it's perfectly normal for GI Jethros to patrol the frozen food aisle with military-grade weaponry, and for the average Joe or Josephine to stockpile enough firepower to outfit a battalion of Marines.

And why do they think it's normal?

Because it is.

Because tonight there will be a high school football game, and maybe there'll be a moment of silence and maybe not, and someone will win and someone will lose. And in another town and another place, children will shoot children again, and God bless America.

Because someone sure needs to.