Yesterday, which was the 4th of July, was as painfully and quintessentially American as any 4th of July can ever remember.

Of course, there was a mass shooting, and it was literally at a 4th of July parade.

As a shooter with what appeared to be an AR-15, rain down on the parade from a balcony, and was later, as you can expect, because he was white, peacefully arrested by police.

That's after killing at least 6 people, shooting dozens more, and terrorizing that community.

And there were more mass shootings all over the country. Yesterday, this weekend, this month, this year.

As of yesterday, and I have to say that because we don't know how many more have happened since.

As of yesterday, the country has had 309 mass shootings this year. More than most countries will see in their entire history.

It's a problem that this country refuses to address. When unpacking and explaining what I know about what happened yesterday, it will go from there.

This is Sean King, and you're listening to...

The Breakdown.

We are at a point in the United States of America that when people from around the world think of this country, they think of mass shootings.

Mass shootings and gun violence are now such an intricate part of the American experience that there is a real argument that mass shootings are the American brand.

Like the American brand is mass shootings happen here every day. In fact, happen multiple times a day, seven days a week, every day of the month, month after month after month.

In all 50 states, they're happening everywhere. And we are in some ways desensitized to them because they happen so frequently that we are only shocked or the better word may be we are only appalled when something like killing 19 children and two school teachers happens.

Because the truth is multiple mass shootings happen yesterday and the day before that and they happen last Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday.

They happen every day and you can only be so shocked, so surprised because they happen so damn often.

Yesterday, there was a fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. People keep calling in Chicago. It's not Chicago. It's a suburb of Chicago.

And I have to say that because very quickly, people were trying to blame this mass shooting on black folk in Chicago. And it's like, no, this was a conservative white man shooting white people in Highland Park, Illinois.

And most mass shooters are white men, the overwhelming majority of them are. And you know, there was this thought that if if mass shootings primarily targeted white people, maybe white people would do something about it.

It's like, no, no, no, no, even when mass shooting skill scores of white folk, they don't do anything about it. Nothing substantive, not to actually change it, not to ban assault weapons, not to really have rigorous background checks, not to require training that you have to to renew frequently.

And at this parade, you can literally see bands marching down the street as bullets begin to fly. And I was in a marching band. I was in high school. If you've ever played in the marching band, you can really only hear yourself and the instruments to the left and the right and in front of you and behind you.

And so as the marching band kept playing, you start seeing people just run in every direction. The marching band just keeps marching forward because they don't see the people running and they don't hear the gunshots.

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