In my last blog post I stated I wasn’t going to write about the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, because nothing ever changes. But it turns out that I do have something to say, after all. I want to say that if small changes are not forthcoming, big changes will be inevitable.
That which does not bend will eventually break. When the NRA and similar groups refuse to compromise on gun policy — even a little — that policy will eventually be rejected in its entirety by the remainder of the body politic. A tipping point is reached and a fracture with the past becomes inevitable. The old paradigm will break and a new one will take its place.
People are sick and tired of being shot by the dozens in schools, by the hundreds at concerts, by the thousands across America’s neighborhoods. People are sick of being terrorized, of being ignored, of hearing worn-out platitudes. People are sick of nothing being done to change what is happening. Politicians tweet their “prayers and condolences” at every mass shooting while accepting gun-lobby money at the same time.
My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting. No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 14, 2018
You’re right, Donald, no one should feel unsafe in a school, or at a concert, or in a theater, or in a restaurant, or in a shopping mall, or sitting on one’s own front porch. But we do. So, what is your plan to make us safe from guns? You haven’t told us, leaving most of us to think your plan is to do nothing and hope this fuss goes away quickly.
When people ask politicians what they plan to do about gun deaths, we hear the inevitable clichés: “It’s too soon to talk about gun control” and “We must not politicize this tragedy” and, as Florida Senator Marco Rubio said, “This is not the time to jump to conclusions.”
You’re right, Marco; we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. But we don’t have to. According to Wikipedia, there have been 197 school shootings (elementary, high school, and university) in the U.S. since 2000 with 267 killed and 375 injured. If we don’t have a conclusion by now, we never will. Also according to Wikipedia, the rate at which public mass shootings occur has tripled since 2011. If we still can’t draw a conclusion, we must be the most stupid people on the planet.
The NRA and the GOP want to turn a gun issue into a mental health issue. Every time a mass shooting happens, the problem isn’t guns, they say. The problem is not enough mental health resources. However, I’m pretty sure other countries have mentally ill people, too. What those other countries don’t have is the record number of mass shootings that plague America.
Gun advocates like to say, “Guns don’t kill. People kill.” That’s only half right. People with guns kill.
If pro-gun groups don’t help stop this plague of shootings in America, I foresee a time when the second amendment will be repealed and gun ownership will be a crime. It’s hard to imagine it happening, but so was the overnight fall of the Berlin wall, and so was the sudden breakup of the Soviet Union.
Conditions fester until a tipping point is reached, and then the public rises up and often the result is the baby is thrown out with the bath water. If gun advocates don’t want to lose all their gun rights, they need to be part of the solution — not part of the problem.
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