Waist-deep in this shit: Quite the April fool indeed

For my few regular readers, I must forewarn you, I am about to return to familiar territory, so forgive me for seeming trite. I feel the need to write that which I am about to write because, in reference to criminal activity, it is obvious many people - particularly, certain media personalities - still fail to see the whole picture, meaning we continue to have our work cut out for us if we're going to end this madness.

Today, as is customary with each weekday morning, I found myself lying in bed overhearing the sounds emanating from the alarm clock radio in the adjacent bedroom, rife with the banter of three supposedly grown men who earn their keep trading shits and giggles on a prominent Toronto radio station. Today, the alpha male of the group decided to comment on a shooting that took place recently, one captured on security camera and subsequently posted on everyone's favourite video-sharing website that shall remain nameless for the time being (by now, I should not have to utter its name for you to know that to which I am referring). He did not hesitate to label the perpetrator, and other gun-toting assailants, as an "idiot" and a "coward", then proceeded to plead his case for a mandatory minimum sentence for being caught with a pistol in one's possession. At this point, I had to get out of bed and as far away from the noise as I could, for I could feel my blood beginning to boil.

I wonder if this individual is aware of the consequences of his utterances, of the impression he bestows upon his listeners who tune into his program every morning from Monday to Friday. I wonder if he realizes how little an effect invoking a mandatory minimum sentence has on criminal activity, that one is likely to be caught with a handgun only after firing it at someone. I wonder if he notices the connection between his name-calling and one's perceived need to rectify a situation by unloading his clip on someone, that, in our society, we are encouraged to solve conflicts by "othering" our counterparts, thus making it easier to not give a flying fuck about their emotional, mental or physical well-being. I wonder if he's ever pondered the correlation between the actions he condemns and the misogynistic material he finds amusing, such as an advertisement for a product he endorses in which a "sexy" female asks her male counterpart if he would like to try some of her cans, to which he responds by asking to "take two", amid cheers from his male boosters.

Perhaps I'm not being clear, so please allow me to do so: we live in a world, dominated by men who have used violence to secure all they desire, in which we are taught to habrour no regard whatsoever for one another, in which the gun is a source of income for far too many, including the wealthy men in suits who own and operate the facilities in which they are designed and made.

Having gone to such trouble to say all that from my perch on the discarded soapbox, I feel I must say I understand how someone would feel warm to the notion of "getting tough on crime". It is a big, scary world, and we want something done about our "undesirables" post-haste. Who has time to sit and understand the inner workings of the criminal mind? Better yet, who has time to assess the machinery of our habitat? We have jobs to work, bills to pay, kids to feed, people to appease; we can't be bothered to concern ourselves with all that - Heaven forbid we succumb to cognitive overload! - hence our burning desire to find the quickest solution to this problem that plagues us. We are all of us afraid, and thus prone to let reaction trump reason.

As I've said before, that shit pipe can handle only so much before it backs up into our living room, making us appear quite the April fool as we stand waist-high in the mess we thought we could simply flush away.