I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones – Albert Einstein   

The schools are safe in the United States. It’s the people there that are scary. 

On Wednesday,  yet another school shooting happened. 

 This time, it was in Apalachee High School in Georgia; a 14 year-old teen shot and killed two of his classmates as well as two teachers.

School shootings are a shockingly regular occurrence in the US, where guns outnumber people and regulations on purchasing even semi-automatic assault rifles are lax.

Every year, more than 4,000 children and teens are shot and killed and over 17,000 more are wounded.

No other country in the world would tolerate such insanity, where sending your child to school might mean playing Russian Roulette with their lives.  Indeed, any self-respecting nation would attempt to change things: New Zealand springs to mind. 

There is something fundamentally  flawed about a society that’s known these numbers for years but does nothing about it. I mean, in the face of  overwhelming evidence to its detriment, the Second Amendment continues to  be a sacred cow. Given the country’s gun violence, the right to bear arms sounds only slightly less asinine than the right to arm bears. 

Why not a middle ground, you ask reasonably? 

Nope. Even basic common sense legislation like universal background checks for potential gun-buyers, is virulently opposed by the National Rifle Association, an extremely well-funded lobby group that ensures political compliance. Its credo to live by goes like this: “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it out my cold, dead hands.”  

Incidentally, numerous polls indicate that background checks are supported by a vast majority of US citizens. The NRA could not care less. 

You might say the NRA gets pretty much what it wants. Or, as they say in Washington: “If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.”

Perhaps America was always bloodthirsty. It was Thomas Jefferson who observed: “People who beat their guns into ploughshares will plough for those who don’t.” The corollary to that must be: “Those that live by the sword get shot by those that don‘t.”  

It was another American, Al Capone, who famously said; “You’ll go much further with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.” 

Or as Rush Limbaugh, a thoughtful, writer much admired by Donald Trump, sagely advised President Ronald Reagan: “The only way to reduce the number of nuclear bombs is to use them.”   

Aesop was the Greek slave who made up over 500 fables. He was also renowned for coming up with this trenchant observation: “We hang the petty thieves and elect the great ones to public office.”  

He could be talking of Najib Razak. Or Donald Trump. 

In those days, the Watergate felons were charged with perjury and  obstruction of justice. Things have certainly changed: nowadays that’s just your average, routine, run-of-the-mill Trump press conference. 

You might think he is an optimistic fellow. He isn’t worried about a 3rd World War at all. As far as the Donald is concerned, that is a Third World problem and not America’s to worry about. 

The Donald only worried about the big picture and it didn’t get any bigger than winning the Presidential race this November. 

Because only the winner got to decide what was criminal and what wasn’t.

It didn’t get any bigger than that. 

ENDS