Grieving in Las Vegas. Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty

The carnage goes on. The Las Vegas shootings have sparked a loud, familiar outcry that something be done to staunch the flow of blood in a country with too many guns, not enough gun laws and a few sick goons getting rich off the killings. An appalled American College of Physicians, the country's largest medical organization which for 20 years has cited gun-related injuries and deaths as "a critical issue of public health," calls for a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons - and damn how can you not? The great Rosanne Cash wrote an op-ed urging her fellow musicians to stand up for gun control, blasting a "deeply sinister" NRA that panders to the country music fan base but in fact "funds domestic terrorism."

Still, a Trump administration waist-deep in NRA-funded blood does nothing. Trump refused to go there when asked in Vegas about the murderous state of the nation, his minions are still making moronic yeah-but-trucks-kill-too arguments, and leaked talking points argue "new laws won’t stop a mad man." They conclude, "We shouldn't rush toward compromising our freedoms before we have all the facts." So. Some facts: About half the Congress is bought and paid for by the NRA. They gave $5,900,000 to Republicans in the 2016 election cycle; they also gave $106,000 to Democrats. Here are the legislators who took their money. Also here. They have telephones. And they sure as hell better have guilty consciences.

Another fact: There are a zillion humdrum, daily, dumb, largely harmless activities that Americans undertake all the time that are more strictly regulated than buying a gun - even an assault weapon whose sole purpose is killing people. Some of those benign pursuits, noted by McSweeney's in a manner entirely appropriate to the gory insanity afflicting us all: