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Post all relevant news and thoughts on this topic here. It's barely a few hours since it happened, and already that same, tired conveyor belt of pointless moral posturing can be seen all over the place. "Thoughts and prayers" tweets mixed with "senseless violence" and condemnations of what happened (Mitt Romney included the whole trifecta in a single tweet!) and of course lamentations that the NRA is to blame, Republicans have blood on their hands, the Republicans are NRA puppets, etc etc. Naturally the focus is that this is a shooting, and that guns are the problem. I had a thought just now when I was noting how this happens every time such a massacre takes place. The usual line goes something line this: "School shooting. Get rid of guns, no more school shootings!" My thought was more like this: "School shooting. Get rid of public schools, no more school shootings!" True, that thought is probably just as knee-jerk reactionary as everything else, and I probably felt that way simply because I was already firmly-opposed to public schooling, and I'm probably no more considerate to the pain and suffering that many people in Florida are going through as a result of this event. But I can't help but wonder if that might actually help prevent these such "tragedies" from occurring... It certainly doesn't exterminate the possibility of depraved souls shooting up private schools, or any congregation of crowds of people, but it might do many things that may lead to fewer of these events taking place. Whether from the public education system's erasure resulting in somewhat-more-balanced individuals, to there just being fewer kids congregated at these institutions, I can't help but feel that THIS is just as preferable of a "solution", and nobody seems to even fathom it a possibility... Last I've read, the shooter is in custody, and was an expelled student. I'm not sure how certain these facts are, but that's the latest that I'm aware of.

I've been perturbed by the number of otherwise politically inactive people on Facebook adding a French Flag filter onto Facebook. One of my more trustworthy friends (who didn't change his picture) posted a status pointing out the trend, and I posted this in support of him. I think I figured out why I don't like the French flag filter, it's because the filter is no-thinking band-aid. When you put on the filter, you can leave it at that and ignore the circumstances that led to this tragedy, like the French Government's arm sales to Arab despots, allowing millions of fighting age "refugees" into their country, and neutering their own populace by making France a gun free country. The French Government has screwed their people by allowing the circumstances that led to the Pairs massacre, and showing your support by flying the French Government's colors isn't going to stop the next attach. Stopping foreign arm sales, increasing deportations, and allowing gun ownership would. What do you fine people think? Should free-thinking people be showing support for France, is the French flag filter a misdirection? Am I just an insane bigot who doesn't care about France in it's time of need?