Joking About "30 – 50 Feral Hogs" Is How a Weary World Grieves Gun Violence

The trending hashtag #feralhogs needs some explaining…

Over the weekend, the world was rocked by two more mass shootings in America, in which thirty lives were lost over the course of 13 hours.

First, 21 people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas on Saturday. The following day, nine more were murdered by a shooter with a high-powered rifle in Dayton, Ohio.

The El Paso shooter allegedly published an anti-immigration manifesto on 8chan prior to the shooting, which had many calling on US president Donald Trump to tone down his inflammatory rhetoric towards migrants that caters to racists and white nationalists.

Of course, these two tragic events are not anomalies in America, unlike the recent Christchurch shooting in New Zealand. Still, it has re-ignited calls for gun control in the United States, where Trump and his Republican party remain unwilling to challenge the powerful gun lobby.

Over the last year, nationwide movements led by teen survivors of the Parkland shooting have failed to change much at the legislative level. So, in the midst of this fury, confusion and fear, gun control advocates—and their supporters around the globe—have had no choice but to channel their feelings into the next most productive medium: memes.

Okay, how does the hashtag #feralhogs come into this?

Country artist Jason Isbell was just one of many musicians—like Rihanna, Cardi B and Kacey Musgraves—to speak out against the shootings on Twitter.

When he was challenged by someone with a "legit question" that read more like an Aesop fable, social media took the ball and ran with it, causing #feralhogs to trend.

30-50 feral hogs? At this time of year? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your yard? pic.twitter.com/h1qtP2IFbq

— Lil' Kim Jong-un (@James__Nesbitt) August 5, 2019

That'll do, 30-50 feral hogs. That'll do.

— RM (@dorsalstream) August 5, 2019

"I only have 5 minutes to dispatch 30-50 of them. That's one hog every 6 seconds." pic.twitter.com/bRrhlQMYk6

— Crass (@crasspants) August 5, 2019

It goes like this
the fourth the fifth
fifty hogs
surround my kids

— Alan (@alan_maguire) August 5, 2019

lol we laugh so we do not cry.

Will this change anything in America?

Almost definitely not. President Trump has put the blame for the shootings on "fake news" and video games, while the National Rifle Association has challenged former President Barack Obama's call for "tougher gun laws" with a statement supporting Trump's position to instead solely "address the root causes of the horrific acts of violence".

Laughing about "30 – 50 feral hogs" may not seem like the most sensitive move in the wake of such senseless violence, but it's definitely not the biggest joke to come from this tragedy.

Header Image: iStock.com/SweetyMommy