Gawker posted a couple of strange stories today within two hours of each other, both tangentially related to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary last Friday.

The first was a shootout over a misunderstanding while two people talked about the killings in Newtown, Conn.:

According to the Associated Press, a patron at the All Cuts Barber Shop in Wentzville, Mo. remarked Tuesday that he wanted to kill the suspect, Adam Lanza — who is already dead. Somehow, inexplicably, 57-year-old Lester Davis was offended and took the comment as a threat, asking, "You want to murder me?"

Police say Davis then went to his car, got a pistol and fired three shots at the unnamed customer. Fortunately no one was injured.

That's dumb, sure. But it doesn't hold a candle to the next item:

[A] Virginia man walked into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Strasburg this morning armed with a 2 x 4 labeled "High Powered Rifle," though the Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office believes he was trying to make a point about school security — or, rather, lack thereof.

Whatever his intentions, 33-year-old Christopher Johnson was immediately approached by a school employee upon entering the school that shares its name with the one in Connecticut that was targeted by a mass murderer last Friday.

According to Sheriff's Office rep Major Scott Proctor, the school's resource officer was on the scene within seconds and Johnson was arrested for disorderly conduct.

So that settles it: What little sanity we had prior to the tragedy at Sandy Hook has been thrown out the damn window. If this is our future, bring on the apocalypse already.