After Texas School Shooting, The Onion Posts 21 Stories on Homepage With the Same Headline: ‘“No Way to Prevent This,” Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens’
Since 2014, satirical website The Onion has published virtually the same article — each with the same headline, “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” — 21 times, each one following a major gun massacre in the United States.
On Wednesday, The Onion posted all 21 of the articles on its homepage, calling stark attention to the unabated epidemic of mass gun killings in the country. That included the latest installment in the series, following the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two adults dead at an elementary school.
“UVALDE, TX — In the hours following a violent rampage in Texas in which a lone attacker killed at least 21 individuals and injured several others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place,” reads the latest article.
Each of the articles quotes a fictional person-on-the-street saying the same thing — “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them” — which The Onion articles say “echo[es] sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations.”
In addition, The Onion on Wednesday reposted seven archived articles to its homepage taking aim at the National Rifle Association, including “NRA Sets 1,000 Killed In School Shooting As Amount It Would Take For Them To Reconsider Much Of Anything” (from 2012) and “NRA Calls For More Common-Sense Gun Deaths” from 2018.
Over this Memorial Day weekend, the NRA has scheduled a pro-gun convention in Houston — boasting “over 14 acres of guns and gear” — with keynote speakers including Donald Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz, along with a concert lineup set to include Lee Greenwood and Larry Gatlin.
The Onion is part of G/O Media, which was formed in 2019 after Univision sold Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion to private-equity firm Great Hill Partners and Jim Spanfeller, who owns a minority stake in the company.
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