America's Danse Macabre

Think of it as the Devil's square dance. Many participants, none leading but all performing together to create a rhythmic whole. Prose requires a linear construct but you can look at these performers from any angle, in any order and the dance is the same.

Gun Fetishists - The NRA is no longer an association of hunters but a lobbying group for perverts. The NAMBLA of guns. Their mission is to insure that deadly weapons are pervasive through all levels of society.

Gun Dealers - If Sig Sauer were a responsible business they would have withdrawn their MCX assault weapon from the market when they discovered a design flaw that allowed it to be easily smuggled into crowded gatherings. They didn't. Instead sales of the weapon have skyrocketed because mass shootings are the greatest advertising that a gun dealer can have.

Prohibitionists - Drug cartels couldn't exist without without the prohibitionists granting criminal gangs monopoly control of the drug trade. Because of the prohibitionists drug availability is unregulated and under the control of violent thugs.

Militarized Police -

One can hardly blame the police for dressing and behaving like stormtroopers. They are tasked with enforcing the law in a nation teeming with high powered weapons. Yet, here we are with police wearing more body armor than war zone soldiers, driving armored personal carriers topped with machine guns, and gunning down citizens at a moment's provocation. It is only a matter of time before some urban police force acquires an army surplus AH-1 attack helicopter.

Politicians - Masters of the curtsy and bow, politicians are the craven whores of the dance. In the words of a current presidential candidate, "some, I assume, are good people" but many are fetishists themselves and many other join the dance hoping to hook up with money.

And so the dance continues - hopelessly, thoughtlessly, always more and more frenetic. Will it end? Can it end? Does it lead to peace or ever more violent bloodshed?