thirty eight is a special number
Sounding like a Celebrity Pointless answer, 38 is the atomic number on the periodic table for Strontium. Our very own bard, Billy Waggledagger, penned exactly 38 plays. In Norse folklore the number 38 addresses unnatural fortitude. Mummified Egyptian Pharos were frequently covered with 38 sculptures of feline watchmen and their stone caskets were embellished with no less than 38 ankhs. Well, who’dathunked it.
I could of course go on (No, please don’t – ed.) but the only thing you really need to know about the number 38 is that there have been exactly 38 mass shootings in the US this year. Yep, you read that right, 38 mass shootings in the US and it’s only the 24th January. WTF. Actually, by the time you read this, it will have undoubtedly increased. In total, and if my math is correct, 79 people have already been shot dead in 2023 in shootings where more than one person has been killed or injured.
Here are a couple more stats for you to contemplate: Over 390 million guns are owned by US civilians and, in 2020, guns overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for children and teenagers. This equates to 120 guns in civilian ownership per 100 people and during that year alone there were sixty-one separate shooting fatalities solely within their schools and colleges. WTF. Again.
Now, having oft commented on US gun ownership, the perverse interpretation of the second ‘right to bear arms’ amendment and the obscene NRA lobby, I concede that legislation will do precious little to reduce this number as it would be merely closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Restrictive controls and actions wrt future possession and ownership should of course be now be taken, but I sadly don’t believe they will be. Shame on me for being such a pessimist but I cannot see how any of this could be reversed without the country descending into something akin to a polarised civil war.
In 2019, when asked by a shielded onlooker as to why he was shooting up the place, the Gilroy Garlic Festival assailant, who had earlier posted that the fayre peddled “overpriced sh*t to Silicon Valley white tw*ts”, replied “Because I’m really angry”. Angry? I’ll say! Never before have three innocent people, irrespective of their breath and culinary habits, been slaughtered in the name of such a humble root vegetable.
