One day a troubled young man with two brand-new assault-style rifles murders 19 innocent children and 2 teachers in an elementary school, a few days later the NRA holds its annual convention in the same state where the slaughter of children and teachers occurred so that it can defend the rights of the young man and others like him to buy weapons.
Some may say that this is just a coincidence, or perhaps simply fate. But saying that denies the connection between the callous indifference of the NRA in promoting guns as a solution to society’s ills and the willingness of troubled young men to use guns to achieve a final murderous solution for their personal pain.
We have already heard the same old tired pleas from the left for a ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, improved universal background checks, and the establishment of a national registry of gun owners.
And we have already heard the same old empty platitudes from the right about how their hearts break for the families who have lost children to senseless violence, followed by their truly heartfelt affirmation that all Americans should own at least one gun if they are, in fact, true patriots.
Why should this latest tragedy result in any change in our collective response?
It is interesting to note that the manufacturer of the weapons used in Texas to murder these children decided not to display their weapons at the NRA convention because of the distraction that their attendance would represent.
However, this is the same company whose marketing campaign shows a small child holding an assault-style weapon with a caption stating that this is the way to indoctrinate our children into this country’s gun culture so that they will grow up the right way.
The same demographic that is horrified that some pregnant women may choose to have an abortion because they are not ready to be mothers and to take on the lifelong responsibilities that motherhood entails appears willing to let innocent children be slaughtered by disturbed people as an acceptable price to pay to preserve our collective right to arm ourselves against our domestic enemies, real or imaginary.
This is not to mention the even more significant problem of cheap handguns being imported into our inner cities from adjacent states that have lax gun laws, to be used most often by young men of color to murder other young men of color.
The fact that death by gun is the number one cause of death for our children does not seem to matter or even register in the hearts and minds of this demographic.
Our inability to acknowledge the fact that guns are being used to kill our children – not trans sex education, not critical race theory, but guns – clearly reveals the soulless nature of our society. We have a very long way to go before the body count is high enough and personal enough to make a difference.
We can take some comfort in the fact that the overall murder rate in the United States of a little over five people per 100,000 population places us 89th worst out of 230 countries/dependent territories, as per UN statistics, so things could be worse. As a comparison, however, the overall murder rate in Canada is a little under two people per 100,000 population, placing them at 151st, so things could be much better.
It is self-evident that we have a gun problem in this country – our children are being murdered with guns. To say that this is not a gun problem is to deny reality.
The fact is that we have sold our collective American soul to the NRA and the gun manufacturers and the weapons dealers, and all the dark special interest money that comes from them.
The assault-type weapon ban that had been passed in 1994 with some measure of bi-partisan support was allowed to expire in 2004 by the Congress of the United States. The assault-type weapon quickly became the weapon of choice for those who desired a long gun, and now dominates long gun sales. With the development of improved cartridges, the assault-type long gun became a reasonably proficient hunting rifle, making it a more mainstream weapon. However, its main applications continue to be for personal protection, masculinity enhancement, and as a defense against nonexistent government tyranny.
The 2nd Amendment, as proposed by James Madison (4th President of the United States, co-signer of the Declaration of Independence, primary author of the Constitution of the United States) and ratified in 1791, was intended to allow the creation of civilian forces, i.e., militias, which could counteract a tyrannical federal government. The concern was that the federal government would begin to exert authority over the individual states in the same way that the British government had exerted authority over the colonies. The 2ndAmendment was intended to prevent this possibility.
In 2005, the Supreme Court determined by a 5-4 vote (District of Columbia v. Heller) that the 2nd Amendment applied to individual Americans and not to the collective citizenry. This was in blatant disregard of the original intent of the 2nd Amendment and a clear example of conservative judicial activism.
So instead of having well-regulated state militias, we now have an unregulated group of disorganized extremist gun nuts who believe that the 2nd Amendment means that they can arm themselves with whatever and however many weapons they choose, and to carry them to the grocery store or to Starbucks or to wherever they feel threatened, or to wherever they feel that the intimidation that comes from an armed show of force is necessary.
Based upon the 2005 Supreme Court decision, along with the range of ill-conceived state laws that continue to eliminate any remaining restrictions on gun ownership, they are right.
So, nearly twenty years later, as a society, what do we have to show for our gun culture? More death, more fear, more sorrow, less social cohesion.
It is quite clear by now that there are tens of millions of Americans who believe that this is a small price to pay for our personal freedom to arm ourselves, to have personal arsenals, to make weapons of mass murder available to all.
As a society we do not seem to care about the extent of this death as long as it is not our own children who are slaughtered or murdered. If we did care, we would do everything possible to prevent this type of death from occurring again and again and again.
This is just one more example of our collective, self-centered hypocrisy. We insist on protecting our unborn children based upon a rigid religious dogma that is followed by a minority of our citizenry. But we refuse to protect our born children based upon the NRA’s dogma that encourages political expediency, paranoia, patriotic propaganda, and corporate greed.
So, as a preemptive and empty gesture, let us all express our sincerest sympathies – our hearts go out to the families whose children are fated to be slaughtered in schools, and to the families whose children are fated to be murdered in pointless gang-related inner-city shootings. We truly feel your pain.
There – done. I for one feel so much better.