Post the Fifteenth: Gun Violence, Part 2

Yesterday, there were two more mass shootings. One an hour's drive away from where I live, and just hours later, another in Ohio. Two shootings, in a matter of hours.
Hours.
Dammit, America, we're having words again.
We are the only first-world country where people are routinely slaughtered every other weekend- whether it be by someone driven by racism, or someone who was spurred to violence by the honeyed words of a terrorist organization, or someone who cracked under stress and went postal. We need to be taking notes from the Brits, from the French, from the Spanish, anybody else who has a solution in place- because we sure as hell don't. And if we do- you could have fooled me. So while we hem and haw about what to do, I've got a few ideas of my own to try.
First wild idea: instead of screaming at each other about how we need more or less gun control in order to stop mass shootings, we fucking TRY SOMETHING for a while and see if it works? If not, we go the other direction! And if THAT doesn't work, then we stop screaming about gun control entirely! Personally, I'd be happy simply banning the guns that are expressly built to kill people. Leave the hunting rifles for those who go stalking deer on weekends, let 'em have their fun. Pistols are fine for home defense and law enforcement; whatever. Assault rifles? High-power snipers? Gone. No more.
You just want to take our guns away! We have a constitutional right to-
Shut the hell up. You planning on raising a militia against a corrupt leadership anytime soon? No? Then your right to bear arms can be fulfilled just fine with any weapon that isn't designed to kill eighty people a minute. You don't need a submachine gun to scare off a burglar- a regular old handgun and a couple warning shots will be enough. Most of those idiots don't usually come around unless they're sure the house is empty, anyway. Armed robbery on the street? Handgun or knife. Better yet: take some judo classes, and try to stay away from any rough neighborhoods if at all possible. Minimize your chances of getting pulled into an altercation like that.
Here's another idea, I quite like this one...
Let's STOP covering mass shootings in the news.
But Consoro, these are terrible things and we need to raise awareness about-
-No. Shut up. We know there's a problem. Awareness has been raised, mission accomplished- now it's time to do something about it. And don't even start getting into the gun control debate again: we've heard the case from both sides, and they both need to stop being stubborn jackasses and reach a compromise already. How long are you going to argue, trying to shout the other guy down from the rafters? Twenty nine more people are fucking dead!

All these news outlets, they dig into The Who and The Why- and don't get me wrong, these are good questions to ask- but they also send the message that all you have to do to get famous is to kill fucking everybody you can before the police show up, and then commit suicide by cop so everyone will want to know why you did it. Their story gets spread publicly, more maniacs who feel slighted by the world see this as a means of taking their revenge, and then we get what we have now: a huge goddamned mess of a country where you aren't safe at school, at church, at a concert, as a face in the crowd of a protest- because someone, somewhere, wants to shoot you in the face. They don't even have to know who you are- it's probably easier if they don't, anyway- they want you dead because you're there.
And don't you even start about "good guys with guns", because I'd like you to show me one instance where a second shooter showed up to stop the first, that wasn't being paid to put their life on the line, and who didn't wind up shot themselves when the police mistook them for the shooter. Just one. Can't think of any? That's cause it never happened. If the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, then clearly there aren't so many of the good guys as you'd like us to think.
Got another idea, I think this one will really turn some heads:
Shove your damn 'thoughts and prayers' up your ass.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this terrible tragedy" is quite possibly the most PR-friendly way to say "Yeah, a bad thing happened and we're sorry- but not so sorry that we're going to do anything about it". And you know what? I'm so, so sick of it, repeated ad nauseum, after every single mass shooting. "Thoughts and prayers", they say, before hurrying off camera. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families". It's a platitude, is what it is, a sanctimonious, over-stated cliche that makes me nauseous and angry every time I hear it. You know what I think about your 'thoughts and prayers'? To paraphrase a movie I'm rather fond of, "You can think and pray in one hand, and crap in the other, and see which one fills up first."
Or, since we're all religious-types here, let me remind you of James 2:14-17.

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Thoughts and prayers do nothing, unless you do something. I don't want to hear how sorry the governor is that something happened in their state, how sorry that corporation is that it happened in one of its stores- I want to see it. Do something. Don't just vomit sweet sympathetic nothings into a mic. For God's sakes, do something! Draft some anti-violence legislation! Start a fundraiser to get the victims and their families counseling, they've been through a traumatic event! Donate blood, food, whatever you think might help- but don't just sit there farting about your thoughts and prayers if you don't intend to act on them. Anybody can say that they feel bad that something bad happened! I feel bad that it happened; you know what I'm doing about it? Pissing and moaning into the empty vacuum of the internet, hoping that someone with some power, anyone, will pluck my message-in-a-bottle out of the digital sea. I'm doing this because I hope that whoever they are, they read this, feel my impotent rage, agree that things are broken, and work toward setting right what's gone horribly wrong. I can't do much from behind my keyboard- I don't have the money, or the influence, or the connections- but I can do this much. I can put my voice out there, a voice of dissent against the violence. Because chances are, this post won't make a change. But better to put it out, and have it go unnoticed, than to stay silent, and guarantee that it will never reach the people it needs to: people who can do what I can't. Which is to say, anything.
One last idea, and I'm sure you'll agree with me on this...
This has to stop. I don't care how it happens. It has to stop. For the love of all that is good and holy in the world- I say it again: don't just sit there- DO SOMETHING.

Break the cycle. I don't care how.