Yesterday the Washington Post informed me that the all too recent WalMart shooting was this year’s 600^th.  Not for the whole world.  Just within our 50 states.  Our longest stretch this year without a gun event in which four or more humans got shot by one killer is six days.  Yes, we have not yet had a single week in 2022 without a bunch of people suffering gun violence, and often their deaths.  This is lunacy.

We have many ways to put the brakes on these events, such as mandatory gun insurance (the insurers will weed out the likely crazies).  Or, we could ban assault weapons, offer buy-backs and ship them to Ukraine.  How about tariffs on guns and ammo at cigarette tax rates?  And there are so many more.   But as Bear Bryant told All-SEC running back Forrest Gump when they was getting stomped in the Sugar Bowl by the then powerful Nebraska Cornshucks, (in the book if not the movie) “Forrest, this shit have got to stop!”

That was yesterday.  At first light this morning Chuck the vomiting cat, awakened me with a leap upon a nightstand and a quick whip of her tail across my mostly sleeping face.  That’s our deal:  when vision edges on possible, you may have first breakfast.  I took a couple of minutes to complete the wakeup process, then arose to serve a Continental cat breakfast (small portions tend to stay in her stomach).  I went back to bed hoping for one more hour of sleep.

A few minutes later I heard three gunshots perhaps a half a mile away, maybe closer.  Then five more, closer.  Kat woke up “What’s that?”  More shots, then more still.  We have camped at Louisiana’s Fairview-Riverside State Park many times, usually in February, without ever hearing gunshots.  “I hope it’s duck hunters in mobile blinds (camouflaged flatboats) on the Tchefuncte River.”

The shooting went on and on, sometimes close and now and then five or seven shots too close together to post-recoil re-aim even a fast Browning Automatic shotgun.  Kat got up to see if anything was going on. I stage-whispered  “Don’t turn on any lights!”  I thought, if I call 911, will there be trouble for me if I express fear of a campground mass shooting?  In Louisiana the odds are good; I did not reach for a telephone.  I did get up and checked the view from windows on three sides.  There was no sign of trouble.

Duck hunters do 90% of their shooting at first light.  Long ago I did that.  That’s what is happening here.  Never before have we camped here in duck season.

But still … dare I write this?  It could happen anywhere, even at a state or national park.

Forrest, we gotta do sumpin’ ‘bout this!