America was killed by its firing squad

America, rest in peace.

Every bullet fired in a mass shooting strikes the heart of America.  And America leads the world in the death rate from mass shootings.

Typical (Median) Annual Death Rate per Million People from Mass Public Shootings (U.S., Canada, and Europe, 2009-2015):

1. United States — 0.058
2. Albania — 0
3. Austria — 0
4. Belgium — 0
5. Czech Republic — 0
6. Finland — 0
7. France — 0
8. Germany — 0
9. Italy — 0
10. Macedonia — 0
11. Netherlands — 0
12. Norway — 0
13. Russia — 0
14. Serbia — 0
15. Slovakia — 0
16. Switzerland — 0
17. United Kingdom — 0

The press and most people do not want to admit that the shootings are the main symptoms of America's failure as a nation.  It has failed in meeting its purpose as laid out in the Constitution:  "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty."

That's because the prevailing notion in America is that the major blessing of liberty is the right to stalk around the country with an assault weapon and blast the life out of anyone you feel like.  That right takes precedent over any matters of domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, or justice.  The right to bear a lethal weapon any time or place you choose and blast away with it overrules your right to life.  Unless you are a fetus.  According to the prevailing powers that be.  

We had a great weekend highlighted by America's favorite patriotic sport:  the mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., one in Milwaukee; one in Laguna Woods, Ca.; and one in Houston.  Are we a great country or what?

When Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem to note one of America's defining failures regarding the shootings of unarmed black people by police, he was widely denounced as unpatriotic.   When Black Lives Matter organized to protest those killings, the brilliant retort was that all lives matter.  But week after week, the news reports that in America, lives do not matter at all.  And that is the will of the people.  It was affirmed in the jury trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in the killing of a couple of people in Kenosha, Wis., for which he was acquitted.

The America envisioned in the preamble to the Constitution is dead.  For some people, it was never alive.