The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

Marcus Aurelius

If the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome, why do we take this approach after each mass shooting?

Can we at least agree with this undeniable fact; after each horrific incident Americans gather in prayer beseeching their god to give them comfort, answers, and to prevent such acts in the future, yet nothing has ever arisen from all these efforts.

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The incidents continue with increasing frequency.

The death toll mounts.

The politicians join hands in these prayer spectacles invoking the same god and yet nothing changes in their approach to the problem.

Hell, they won’t even seek answers to define the problem or craft a solution

Perhaps the silence of the gods is the message. Either god can’t help or won’t help.

We are on our own for this one.

If god helps those who help themselves, perhaps god also abandons those who refuse to find their own solutions to a problem of their own making.

Take all the comfort you can in prayer. Take all the solace in your faith that it offers you. But don’t look for a solution to a human problem—a problem arising from our free will and stubborn adherence to our history and tradition of gun violence and the myth created by some invoking the Second Amendment—from a god. Look for it in your own heart.

I, for one, will be looking quite closely at those who seek office and accept money from those with a financial interest in preserving the status quo.

If we believe the right to bear arms is inviolate regardless of the loss of innocent lives without even bothering to seek a solution perhaps you should take a harder look at those images from Texas and imagine yourself standing outside that school as you wonder if your seven or eight- or nine-year-old is going to come back to you.

But you won’t. You’ll go back to your happy oblivion of willful ignorance of reality. If nothing changes, there are many more young children walking around with targets on their backs who won’t live to see their next birthday.

Let that thought percolate for a bit.

I have to think those who unequivocally embrace their weapons have an exaggerated and dangerous misconception of the safety those weapons offer.

A gun is only loyal to the person who pulls the trigger

If you’re willing to accept the inevitability of such incidents in the future, spare us the spectacle and empty words of your prayers, they are sound and fury signifying nothing.