Onion goes viral with ‘No Way to Prevent This’ story on mass shootings

The satirical online publication “The Onion” went viral Monday with a recycled headline it has used following several mass shootings: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.” 

A tweet from the site’s official account has been retweeted more than 54,000 times and liked more than 81,000 times.

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens https://t.co/LMg4mj6LFn pic.twitter.com/FZuB4iWFOi

— The Onion (@TheOnion) October 2, 2017

“In the hours following a violent rampage in Las Vegas in which a lone attacker killed more than 50 individuals and seriously injured 400 others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Monday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place,” reads the opening paragraph to the satirical story. 

{mosads}

The story followed the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, in which a gunman killed at least 59 and injured more than 520 others at a country music festival on Sunday.

The Onion has applied the same headline to other mass shootings in the past, including ones that occurred in Charleston, S.C., San Bernardino, Calif., and on a college campus in Roseburg, Ore. 

“At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as ‘helpless,’” the story concludes. 

The Chicago-based Onion, founded at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988, ran gun violence-themed follow-up stories Monday including “Americans Hopeful This Will Be Last Mass Shooting Before They Stop On Their Own For No Reason” and “NRA Says Mass Shootings Just The Unfortunate Price Of Protecting People’s Freedom To Commit Mass Shootings.””

Americans Hopeful This Will Be Last Mass Shooting Before They Stop On Their Own For No Reason https://t.co/JNxt2ARHaX pic.twitter.com/HrE5X8GiNo

— The Onion (@TheOnion) October 2, 2017