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There's a feeling that many Americans have become familiar with in the wake of major mass shooting incidents: A mix of horror, shock, bitter resignation, and helplessness.
It's a feeling that washes over you every time there's a major mass shooting in the U.S., and then retreats in between incidents. The word major is necessary because there are now so many mass shootings—nearly one a day—that only those with particularly high body counts garner serious attention.
Nothing captures that frustration and powerlessness as well as a 2014 story from The Onion: "'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens."
The Onion, a humor publication that is part of Fusion Media Group, has responded to the epidemic of mass shooting incidents by re-running this darkly funny piece.
Four more posts have been published with the same headline since the original, with the most recent coming on Monday, in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting, which was one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
Each post is very similar, with details changed to the particulars of each shooting. All of the stories contain the same quote, attributed to different fictional citizens: “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them."
As noted by CNN's Brian Stelter, The Onion has published the post repeatedly since its original publication in May 2014, after a gunman killed six people in Santa Barbara, California.
The Onion declined to comment on the piece and the decision to keep repeating it.
There's no shortage of brilliant Onion pieces, but none have resonated—or been as tragically prescient—like the "No Way" post. As the U.S. political climate has become more polarized, gun control has become a topic rarely mentioned, or at least rarely mentioned as a serious possibility.
Republicans have taken a hardline against any new gun regulations or limitations, no matter how broadly they are supported among the public, with strong backing from powerful special interests. including the National Rifle Association.
The result has been a sense that even incremental changes to U.S. gun laws are impossible even as mass shootings continue with regularity. In contrast, other countries have responded to mass shootings by instituting stricter gun laws—and watched gun crime rates drop.
The contradiction inherent to the U.S. situation—that there are no options to stop something that has been shown to be solvable—is summed up perfectly by The Onion and only grows more brutal with repetition.
It's a story that, like many good Onion items, is firmly rooted in reality.
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