Barack Obama at a recent rural elementary school assembly in East Texas , asked the audience for total quiet. Then, in the silence, he started to slowly clap his hands once every few seconds, holding the audience in total silence. Then he said into the microphone, "Children, every time I clap my hands together, a child in America dies from gun violence." Then, little Richard Earl, with a proud East Texas drawl, pierced the quiet and said: "Well, dumb-ass, stop clapping!"