So did you change their mind?

Did they change yours?

Did you learn anything?

Did they?

Did you come up with a solution?

Did they convince you their way forward was better?

Or did you all just sit around, rending your shirts, politicizing the fuck out of the scantest information to prop your opinions up with someone else's blood?

I'm a fuckin' idiot. I grew up drinking lead. I shoulda been dead of nuclear war by 1986, AIDS by 1989, the greenhouse effect by 2000 and fuckin' Monsanto or some shit by 2012 but I'm still here, you're still here, we're all still here and evil walks the earth, forever and ever amen.

We got people here "remembering" fuckin' Roseburg. I got mayonnaise older than that shooting. Know what I remember? San Ysidro. Crazy fuckers have long been walking into restaurants and killing people.

We got people here insisting it was a hate crime and therefore somehow worse. Right. Because every gathering of small children is an act of bravery since Sandy Hook, right? Every act of sleeping in a sorority an act of bravery since Santa Barbara (or hey - how 'bout since fuckin' Richard Speck?) And every summer camp an act of bravery since Breivik.

And of course, it's "radical islam." Hey, know what? If the FBI investigates you twice and doesn't pull the trigger, that means you're a citizen. "Oh, by the way, up with ISIS! allahu akbar! TTYL!" So which personal liberties shall we give up this time so you can feel more safe at night? Who shall we profile?

Clearly, it's those evil assault rifles. Except Dunblane was handguns. Osaka was a kitchen knife. Oklahoma City was fertilizer and diesel. I'm sure the NRA is to blame for this if we only triangulate our self-righteousness properly.

LOOK AT ME I HAVE A POINT AND NOW IT'S GOT BLOOD ON IT. LISTEN TO ME! LISTEN TO ME! LISTEN TO ME!

This is a country where you are innocent until proven guilty. That lets a lot of evil through. Always has, always will. What do these post-mortems always look like? "Oh, we missed the signs." "Oh, fingers pointed at agency X for dropping the ball." "Oh, those evil muslims." "Oh, those evil politicians." "Oh, my guy is better than your guy." "Oh, my path is of righteousness and thou art on the road to hell." MILLIONS of muslims woke up yesterday morning and didn't drive to a gay bar to shoot it up. MILLIONS of gun owners did not plot to overthrow America. Go for a walk in your neighborhood. You will find no one that is any closer to killing you all today than they were yesterday.

Should guns be harder to get? In my opinion, hell yeah. Would it have made a difference here? Hell no. How long were Harris and Klebold scheming to shoot up Columbine? Well, they'd been in and out of juvie for six months. They made a video - for school - in which they pantomimed killing their classmates. Give a vaguely resourceful psycho a six-month head start and he doesn't need guns.

In this modern world, with these modern liberties, we are dependent on the social compact to preserve our fundamental freedom. I like social compacts that are peer-oriented. I dislike top-down autocracies. Has the TSA made you safer? How 'bout PRISM?

Someone out there doesn't like your face. They don't like your lifestyle, your god, your diet, your shoes. If they're a vaguely normal human, they keep it to themselves. If they're mildly unhinged, they take to the internet. If they are bleeding asymptote crazy they might just saddle up and go practice suicide by cop. This? This is no bueno.

But you know what?

I'm sorry that the crazies scare you. I Grew up with this shit and you people scare me more. You live in a country that loves Tarantino, loves Deadpool, loves Dirty Harry and fucking adores guns and evil will pluck that like grapes from a vine. So keep celebrating Scorsese out of one side of your mouth and decrying Travis Bickle out of the other - that's the dichotomy of America and fuckin' A, I'm used to it. You're used to it. Culturally, this is the choice we've made.

But quit pretending that shit would be different if only your politics dominated. You may be right, you may be wrong, you may be wise you may be crazy but dipping your arguments in someone else's blood doesn't make you right, it makes you ghoulish.