Another day, another massacre, this one at the Washington Navy Yard, where a lone gunman killed 12 before himself making the dead a baker’s dozen. I can hardly wait for the gun nuts and their defenders in Congress to hold forth on how it’s not “the right time,” it’s “too soon,” to discuss gun control in the wake of this tragedy. It’s “inappropriate” to politicize the deaths of innocents by raising the issue of common sense gun laws…but gun nuts and their apologists politicize it by refusing to face the truth. No, better to wait until things blow over…so we can ignore the lessons of this tragedy and wait until the next one. And there WILL be a next one.
Aurora wasn’t enough to convince gun nuts of the need for common sense gun control. Newtown wasn’t enough. There’s no reason to believe that yesterday’s senseless massacre will be enough. The sad truth is that the gun nuts don’t care about anything except their “inalienable,” “unalterable,” and “sacrosanct” 2nd Amendment rights. To their sick, self-absorbed way of thinking, ANY attempt to enact laws that might reduce the chances that another mass shooting might occur is ipso facto an assault on their God-given rights.
I’m sick and tired of the constantly growing death toll…and not just from mass shootings. Approximately 30 people die from gun violence in America EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. The consistent response from gun nuts? “Hey, as long as it’s not one of my friends or loved ones, what’s the problem?” How many more innocents must die before the gun nuts realize that this isn’t about them, that their “rights” don’t trump any and all other considerations, including public safety? How long will we continue to sit by and allow those who care more about their guns than life itself- especially the lives of innocent civilians- to dictate public policy?
The truth is that more guns DON’T equal more safety and security. More guns equal more murder. More guns equals more dead sons, brothers, husbands, daughters, wives, and sisters. More guns equal more dead children. More guns equal 30 dead Americans each and every day.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of a political climate dominated by gun nuts and the Congressmen they’ve purchased. I’m tired of a political culture more concerned about lining their campaign war chests with money from the gun lobby than with doing the right thing by their constituents. Is it going to take a massacre in the halls of Congress before the need for action becomes impossible to ignore? Will mass murder have to be visited upon the Capitol before Congressmen owned by the NRA finally decide they can no longer rest on cowardice and continue to ignore the need for common sense gun control?
I’ll freely admit to be a gun-grabbing Liberal. I want to live in a country where the possession of firearms is prohibited. If I was King of the World, our gun laws would be equivalent to Australia. That will never happen, of course, and I understand that. What I fail to understand is why the body count continues to grow even as gun nuts insist that ANY attempt to pass laws smacking of gun control is unacceptable because it tramples on their precious 2nd Amendment “rights.” I’d like to see them explain that to the loved ones of those murdered yesterday…but that would take a degree of moral courage they clearly lack. When you care about your guns more than life itself, the death of other people’s loved ones is merely a cost of preserving freedom.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
