Until responsible gun owners support responsible gun control laws, innocent blood will continue to flow. How many times must we see this?
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 18, 2015American novelist Stephen King has hit out at the “proudly closed minds” on gun control in America following the murder of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina this week. Six women and three men were killed in the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church on Wednesday, with suspect Dylann Roof, a white 21-year-old who acquaintances have said had been “planning something like that for six months,” now in custody. According to Roof’s uncle, Carson Cowles, the 21-year-old…had been given the gun for his 21st birthday. King wrote an essay on guns shortly after the 2013 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school , Connecticut, which left 26 people dead. In it he called for a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, calling them “weapons of mass destruction”, which “when lunatics want to make war on the unarmed and unprepared, these are the weapons they use”…. There are “too many closed minds on gun control. Worse, far too many PROUDLY closed minds”, he added, and that “meanwhile, the American shooting gallery remains open”.
I must confess to being very angry over the past few days. I’m angry that yet another senseless mass shooting has taken place. I’m angry that proudly closed-minded gun control foes seem OK with having blood on their hands. I’m angry that more people are having to bury loved ones murdered by a madman given a gun for his 21st birthday. I’m angry at the children of Wayne LaPierre and Larry Pratt who kill the innocent in order to draw attention to whatever sick political statement they feel compelled to make.
More than anything, I’m angry with America. Though a majority of Americans favor common sense gun control, we refuse to demand it. We refuse to confront our elected representatives, most of whom are in the pocket of the gun industry and terrified of the NRA. We cluck disapprovingly when yet more innocents are massacred…yet once the memory fades, we continue on our merry way, only to be yanked back once the next mass shooting occurs.
What happens when the next senseless, unthinkable tragedy occurs? There will be one; it’s just a matter of when and where. Do we sit back idly out of fear and a sense of impotence? Or do we take what action we can- writing our congressmen and legislators, standing up to proudly closed-minded gun control foes, and/or donating to and perhaps even working for groups dedicated to reducing gun violence through common sense gun control? Do we stand up to those who ridicule the President for having the temerity to state the obvious, that no nation which considers itself to be “civilized” should be tolerant of senseless, random bloodshed?
Why do good and decent people sit on their hands while madness and murder continue the rain down upon us?
“According to Bloomberg Business, gun deaths will exceed traffic fatalities in America this year. Can’t put a seatbelt on a semi-automatic,” wrote the bestselling novelist, who is followed by almost three-quarters of a million people on Twitter. King withdrew his own novel Rage, about a high-school shooting, following the 1996 murder in a Washington school of a teacher and two students by Barry Loukaitis. Loukaitis quoted a line from Rage: “This sure beats algebra, doesn’t it?” following the murders. A year later, Michael Carneal, who had a copy of Rage in his locker, would kill three people in a Kentucky high school.
“That was enough for me. I asked my publishers to pull the novel,” wrote King in his 2013 essay . “I didn’t pull Rage from publication because the law demanded it; I was protected under the First Amendment, and the law couldn’t demand it. I pulled it because in my judgment it might be hurting people, and that made it the responsible thing to do.
“Assault weapons will remain readily available to crazy people until the powerful pro-gun forces in this country decide to do a similar turnaround.”
Are we to be OK with the idea of living in what amounts to a shooting gallery, in which the next “winner” of the gun massacre lottery waits to be chosen? Can we not demand respect for the obvious? That Americans have the right to live in a world in which “MOR GUNZ!!! isn’t considered the solution and where we have the honesty to demand that “MOR GUNZ!!!” be recognized as the problem?
No matter what they may think, proudly closed-minded gun control foes can’t assume the right to set the agenda. If someone tells you otherwise, ask them a very simple question: What’s the difference between someone carrying a gun in a mall, an airport, or a coffee shop, and someone carrying a gun into a church and killing nine innocent people? The difference is a split-second, and until proudly closed-minded gun control foes recognize and admit this, they’ll remain complicit in subsequent mass shootings. Like it or not, they have blood on their hands…not that they’ll recognize or own up to their complicity.
I can only speak for myself, but I know I’m not alone in this sentiment: I don’t want to wonder if the person carrying an AR-15 in an airport is merely an attention whore with compensation issues…or mere moments away from mowing down innocent bystanders. There are times and places where high-powered weaponry is appropriate, and public spaces shouldn’t be on that list. If you believe otherwise and believe you need to carry and AR-15 into public places to “protect” yourself, YOU are the one we need protecting from. You’re no patriot, and you’re not exercising your “God-given rights” as provided by the 2nd Amendment. You’re an inconsiderate asshole and attention whore, a sociopath who should be disarmed and placed under a doctor’s care (preferably while heavily medicated).
No decent person with even the barest shred of respect for others carries a high-powered weapon into a public space. In light of recent events, there’s absolutely no way for anyone to know whether you’re merely “exercising your constitutional rights” (albeit in a sick, disturbingly misguided manner)…or a psycopath looking for reason and opportunity to open fire.
Waiting “until the powerful pro-gun forces in this country decide to do a similar turnaround” seems the equivalent of waiting for Godot. We can wait passively for change to come, and more innocents will die while we hope for Godot’s rumored imminent appearance. Or we can rouse ourselves from our collective torpor and demand change, because that’s the only hope of righting the ship and creating a world in which going to church doesn’t have to be a person’s last mortal act.
WE DESERVE BETTER, but we’re not going to get it until we stand up and demand our due.
