Since 1968, 1.4 million Americans have been killed by firearms, compared to 1.2 million who have died in all of our wars. You expect soldiers to die in wars; that’s the occupational hazard soldiers accept. You shouldn’t have to think about losing your life to a firearms as a civilian. America is the one of the few places in the world where owning a gun is considered a right, and that right has been conflated into something that supersedes virtually any other right…including what should be the inalienable right to simply live.
We’ve devolved to the point where we accept the occasional mass shooting, accidental firearm-related death, or murder as the cost of freedom. It’s as if the deaths of those we don’t know are mere abstractions, something of little import since they don’t impact us directly. We allow those who’ve misinterpreted the 2nd Amendment and twisted it into something unrecognizable that accrues to their benefit to continue to carry the debate, even as we bury those killed because of it. We allow people who worship the implements of death to have their way, while those who want to live without the fear of gun violence go begging.
I’d say that gun nuts should be ashamed of their willingness to accept the death of innocent people as the cost of their agenda…but that presupposes they actually possess the capacity for shame.
