As high schoolers, teachers are cut down, NRA has Trump and Congress by the balls

Madison Cantrell, a junior, hugging a fellow student at a prayer vigil held on Friday afternoon for 8 students and 2 teachers killed during a gun attack at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas (Photo credit: David J. Phillip/AP).

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- "School shootings are now as American as apple lie," is how John Cassidy of The New Yorker started his column on the slaughter at a Texas high school last week.

"And Friday's tragedy at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, followed the usual recipe."

Cassidy said the only "atypical" aspect of the shooting is that the 17-year-old gunman reportedly used a shotgun and a revolver his father owned legally to kill his 10 victims and wound 13 others.

Will the father be charged with being criminally responsible in the murders?

Trump sits on hands

Of course, we can predict inaction from President Trump and the GOP-dominated Congress, who are bought and paid for by the National Rifle Association.

NRA campaign contributions to both Republicans and Democrats are the blood money they use to get re-elected.

The NRA has them by the balls in the same way Trump boasted on the "Access Hollywood" tapes about how easy it was to grab women by the pussy.

From Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina, Congress claims, "See I am doing something!"

Rental cars, guns

You have to be 25 years old to rent a car, but many gun shops will sell you a deadly weapon at a much younger age.

More high school students have been killed since Trump took office than U.S. soldiers have died in the two wars in which we're still involved (Afghanistan and Iraq).

Those were the among the observations Friday night by guests on "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO.

Right to bear arms

We're living in a sick country when the nation's high court can rewrite the Second Amendment to extend the right to bear arms to individuals from a "well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state."

And then lazy journalists began referring to the "Second Amendment right to bear arms" when hysterical gun owners claim proponents of tighter background checks and other reforms want to "take our guns away."