'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
"No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" is the recurring headline of articles published by the American news satire organization The Onion after mass shootings in the United States. The articles satirize and lament the United States of America's failure, unique among developed countries, to prevent gun violence.
Each article is about 200 words long, detailing the location of the shooting and the number of victims, but otherwise remaining essentially the same. A fictitious resident—usually of a state in which the shooting did not take place—is quoted as saying that the shooting was "a terrible tragedy", but "there's nothing anyone can do to stop them." The article ends by saying that the United States is the "only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years", and that Americans view themselves and the situation as "helpless".
Background
The article was first published on May 27, 2014, following the Isla Vista killings. Struggling to continually satirize mass shootings, Jason Roeder suggested the republished story to reduce emotional trauma for the writers while increasing their impact. The Onion has since republished the article after dozens of mass shootings, changed only to reflect the specifics of each shooting. In 2017, Marnie Shure, the managing editor for The Onion, said: "By re-running the same commentary, it strengthens the original commentary tenfold each time. ... In the wake of these really terrible things, we have this comment that really holds up."After The Onion republished the article on February 14, 2018, following the Parkland high school shooting, Roeder wrote that he "had no idea it would be applied to the high school a mile from house". On May 25, 2022, after the Uvalde school shooting, The Onion featured all 21 versions of the article they had written since 2014 on the home page of their website and on their Twitter feed. The homepage feature was repeated after the July 4 Highland Park shooting, when the article count had increased to 25. As of December 2025, it has been published 39 times.
Reception
The New York Times wrote in 2017 that "with each use, seemed to turn from cheeky political commentary on gun control into a reverberation of despair". Mashable wrote that "nothing captures that feeling of frustration and powerlessness" following major mass shootings as well as The Onion articles, adding that "there's no shortage of brilliant Onion pieces, but none have resonated—or been as tragically prescient—like the 'No Way' post."The Washington Post wrote that The Onion "appears to capture the frustration and futility felt by so many people" following mass shootings, noting the increased Internet traffic the articles draw and how popular they are on social media. The Huffington Post said the articles have become "a staple of the social media response to mass shootings", citing how widely shared they are on Facebook and Twitter.
The Daily Beast mentioned the articles in a piece titled "How The Onion Became One of the Strongest Voices for Gun Control". Similarly, Wired mentioned it in an article discussing the power of The Onion satire in the face of gun violence, titled "Only The Onion Can Save Us Now".