Commentary on killings draws strength through repetition
NEW YORK — A satirical website is responsible for one of the starkest commentaries on mass killings, and it draws its power through repetition.
After the Texas church shooting this week, The Onion posted for the sixth time a variation of the same article headlined: “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”
The article changes datelines — this time it was Sutherland Springs, Texas — and a few details to reflect which tragedy was most recent. But its centerpiece quote, each time from a different fictitious person, remains the same.
This week’s post: “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Kansas resident Britt Mulvanos, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.”