Gunmen Turn to School Huggings for Shock Value

Feb 11, 2018

Long ago are the days of Columbine.  

“I just don’t get it,” said potential school shooter Jared Paz. “What’s it going to take to raise a little concern around here?  I just bought a bunch of Bushmaster semi-automatic rifles and asked pretty obvious questions about the best way to kill as many kids as fast as possible, but no one seemed to care.  I guess it's because there have already been 11 school shootings in the first three weeks of 2018 alone.  It’s hard to keep track of.”

In an age where school shootings are no longer shocking, potential gunmen like Jared are wondering what they need to do to make some waves through all the noise.

“I thought about getting famous on Instagram,” said Jared.  “But everyone I know is already doing that. The market is totally saturated. My friends are all practically naked online and still can’t get 5k likes. The only ones who are successful have rich parents who buy their likes and arrange sex tape deals for when they turn 18.  Man, screw that.”

The hugging movement seemed to come out of nowhere.

“The hugs were definitely not my design.  I had my trench coat loaded up with grenades.  I was hoping bombs could get noticed since no one cares about bullets anymore.  So there I was walking through the baseball fields, when I saw my first hit, Jenny, this popular cheerleader that never noticed a 'loser' like me before.  The kind of girl us gunmen typically target, I suppose.  She sure would notice me now.  When I was about to take out a grenade, I suddenly noticed she was sad.  She was crying.  That's when the object of my attention became a subject.”

The cheerleader, Jenny Evergreen, explained it in her own words.  “Yeah I was sad because my grandma died.  That's when I saw that weird cute boy Jared from history class come up with this crazy look on his face.  But then he asked why I was crying and seemed really sympathetic when I told him.  He said his grandma died too last year.  And then out of nowhere he gave me a hug.  That’s when it all exploded.”

Immediately people took notice.  It detonated with a wave of warm fuzzy feelings.  A nascent sensation had finally got the spark it so needed.

The next day, three school huggings were reported on campus.  The day after: forty-three.  By the following weekend over seven hundred hugs had taken place in the district.

“It really blew up fast,” said Jared.  “People from other school districts have been coming up to me wanting a hug.  Saying it was time.  I've gotten messages from other countries.  They're asking if I had a manifesto or something for them to read that explains why I started the movement.  The truth is I don’t know how it happened.  It’s not about me.  I feel really humbled by it all.”

But not everyone has been happy.  

“These hugs are destroying our traditional American values!” said Republican representative Richard Burr (NC).  “Hug abstinence is the best policy.  Although I am against big government in every single way, especially for the military and women's rights, my colleagues and I have decided that we must stand up for traditional America and fight these public displays of affection.  We have drafted a law to immediately ban school hugs.  This covers all forms of hugs, from around-the-shoulder one-arm hugs to fully automatic double-arm embraces.  In addition, we will impose a 30-day waiting period, exhaustive background checks, and a lengthy testing process if you wish to hug anyone within 1000 feet of school grounds.  With these simple changes, we will nip this problem in the bud and not suffer a single incident more.  Remember: It's the hugs that kill people, not the people."

One thing is for sure, the hugs don't seem to be going anyway.  So we might as well learn to embrace them.