The Onion

(Minneapolis, MN) After years of declaring the dangers of respecting gender, republicans are quietly optimistic that the recent school shooting in Minnesota, killing two children and injuring many others, will justify 50 years of loud and often violent hatred of transexuals. “We have said for many years, these people need to be driven into the streets and shot like animals,” said one republican pundit on fox news Thursday, “and this one shooting confirms all our years of fear were correct.”

This enthusiasm is widespread among the far right, while some admit that this shooting is a breath of fresh air, after dozens of mass killings by straight, white, conservative males in a row. “I’ll be honest,” said Jerub Cornflour of Kansas, “after all these troubled men who couldn’t get mental help in time in a row, I was starting to think the guns were the problem. I mean, that Trump boy voted for him. But this shows that trans people mean to kill us all, and it’s not the guns, it’s the gay.”

“Would of been nicer if he wasn’t white, though,” he added.

This mental contortionism is widespread in America, where even the idea of banning weapons would be met with laughter at this point. As communities grieve and enter the second of three days they will discuss the tragedy, republicans are just glad they have something to blame other than mental health.

“This is a real tragedy,” lamented Leo Sturbgetter, a cow detangler in rural Georgia. “You have to look at children dying like this and wonder what bathroom he used.”