MATANZA

Nothing says freedom more than having a .357 tucked under your armpit or carrying an AK-47 in the trunk of your car. Guns are what make America so great. Of course there are some drawbacks to this freedom, like, oh, I don't know, the occasional mass murder.

In view of the fairly recent slaughter at Virginia Tech, it's impossible not to talk about the trigger. As with other massacres, this incident will spark a lot of debate over gun control and you can bet some bleeding hearts will have the nerve to suggest outlawing guns, yet again; while the neocon pistol-humpers have no problem with gun laws that allow psychotics to get their hands on lethal weapons. Oh, no, of course not. We all know that guns don't kill people, people kill people. The guns are just fine and the gun makers are just nice, decent business people. Makes you love America, doesn't it?

The entire country is sure to have taken a grim familiarity to news footage of the sort and by now people know the drill. The story comes out in bits and pieces, with reports of a shooting at a certain location. Then it turns into multiple shootings and the public gets the shaky news footage of people running or sobbing into each other's arms, ambulances and squad cars roaring up to the scene, cops in SWAT gear running in all directions. Then there's the diagram of the killer's progress, mapping out the assault like a historical battle, rather than fresh carnage. Gradually, the whole story comes out, usually a variation on the disgruntled loner who got his hands on a gun. We learn of the innocents who died, hear about acts of bravery. We also get the rundown of previous massacres, reported as if they were sports statistics. You could probably run the same footage every time and few people would know the difference. To paraphrase the conservative icon Ronald Reagan, you've seen one massacre, you've seen them all. There will be candlelight vigils, speeches by politicians, as people vow they will never forget these terrible events and never let them happen again.

And then it will happen again.

While newspapers around the world ask what the hell is going on in American and why innocent men, women and children are being slaughtered, Americans will be going on about their constitutional right to carry guns, even though the amendment was written at a time when people carried flintlocks, not semi-automatic handguns that can blanket the air with bullets.

Some pundits are actually suggesting that if Virginia Tech hadn't outlawed firearms on campus, the students might have been able to fight back against their attacker. Let me see now: we have a college campus, where young people drink, deal with the pressures of their studies, their families, and their relationships. And sometimes they get really angry. So, of course, letting them carry guns to school is the perfect solution - if you want to have a massacre every weekend, that is. But then, of course, it's their God given right to blow each other's brains out.

Meanwhile, the gun industry has nothing to worry about. In case you're confused, just remember this little ditty: the NRA will always have its way in the USA. As long as the gun lobby continues to stuff money into politicians' pockets, authorities will be zipping innocent people into body bags. And matanza will keep appearing on front pages. Yes, that's America, where they regulate abortions, but not assault weapons. Focus on the fetus, but not the stacks of corpses that continue to pile up.

So get out there and start shooting. Shoot your neighbors, shoot your goldfish, shoot your dentist, shoot your plants, shoot everything that moves and maybe a few things that don't. Let's have more massacres, more senseless shootings, and more grieving families. It's the American way, after all, how could you object to it?

Unless you're some kind of commie.