February 13, 2023, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a smear of jam. Is it across a slice of toast, a white shirt, or something unexpected? The jam could be the focus or detail that ads a twist. Who are the characters with the jam and where are they situated in space and time? Go where the prompt leads!
I typically steer clear of politics on my blog, but this time I feel the need to speak up. The shooting at Michigan State hit close to home. My niece attended school there, thankfully she is not there now. So please bear with me while I have a brief 99-word rant about gun violence.
Awoke this morning to reports of another mass shooting. This time an American university. Three students dead, five injured, shooter dead. Thoughts and prayers.
Senseless bloodshed that has become all too familiar in today’s American culture. Calls for reform are drowned out by the gun advocates and lobbyists that empower political systems to relax gun laws rather than constrain.
Whether it is a random shooting or a mass shooting, it is a proven fact gun violence in America is on the rise. Americans are growing desensitized, even accepting perhaps. Senseless bloodshed, as a smear of jam on American faces.
Thanks for reading! Now, on a lighter note, please visit last week’s Collection of 99-word Letters to Nature.
Miss Judy Writes 
It is so senseless. Sadly, we’re not immune to this here in Canada either. Despite our tighter gun laws, we seem to hear about shootings more than we used to.
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I don’t understand any of it.
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I live in East Lansing and we don’t understand the gun violence either! We can’t seem to get our government officials (GOP) to recognize that laws must be in place to stop the violence.
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Infuriating and sad.
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Agreed. 😦
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The US takes the cake at not stopping people who shouldn’t handle guns from buying them. To be honest, I used to be a 2A absolutist until a stray round from a woman playing around with a handgun while hiking, struck me and took off both of my testicles. I guess it’s easy to see this as a road to Damascus realization. Better background checks and better training would have prevented the “accident” which made me a eunuch and, for a brief time, traumatised the woman who injured me but, for some reason, is still licensed to carry the handgun which I have since heard she refers to as the gun that took a man’s balls off.
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