The following is in response to Fandango’s Provocative Question #166. The prompt is:
Do you feel that President Biden’s plea to take action and to do something to stem the rising tide of gun violence in America have any impact? Or will lawmakers at both the federal and state levels do nothing more than offer their useless “thoughts and prayers,” which is all they ever do?
Content Warning: Offensive Language
Same Shit, Different Day
Ten days, 21 more lives, 19 of them ten-year-old children. The same old news with different names, different faces, and subtly different storylines. The one thing they all have in common is the same all too familiar outcome.
Unfortunately Fandango, I don’t believe Biden’s call for action will have any effect on Federal and State politicians, the NRA, individual gun owners, and most everyday Americans. These types of pleas have fallen on stone deaf ears in the past and there are no signs that America’s views on guns are any different now than in the past.
I have already heard from family and friends in the United States and in particular, Texas that don’t believe gun control is the solution. Instead, they believe training and arming teachers to carry in school is the answer. It appears the best option is to shoot our way out of these messes.
Hell, I suggest we not stop there, empty the entire gas can on the dumpster fire. Let the elementary kids carry too, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday they should take several hours out of science, math, and literature (but not religion) classes and learn how to shoot stuff (or each other.) If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it absolutely is ridiculous. If you are reading this and it doesn’t sound absurd to you then let me spell it out…
The answer is NEVER more access to guns! NEVER!!!
I don’t like guns, I don’t use guns in my personal life and I see no need to own one. That said I do not fall into the anti-gun ban all firearms camp.
What I do believe is that gun controls are necessary. Minimum ages to use and to own, rigorous screening practices, stricter licensing, cooling-off periods that delay taking possession after purchases, and the right for medical and law enforcement professionals to revoke licenses and have weapons seized for unstable individuals does not seem unreasonable. There is also an array of guns designed for one purpose and one purpose only, killing people. They are not defensive in nature, even their classification as assault rifles tells you they are offensive (in more ways than one) weapons. Those weapons should be banned completely.
I don’t think we can eradicate every horrible outcome (God knows I wish there were a way) but if any or all of those measures stop even one mass rampage, robbery, kidnapping, murder, suicide, or any other senseless shooting it would be more than worth the tiny bit of “freedom” lost that those in the gun lobby hold so fucking dear! A world where freedom to the nth degree trumps the senseless murder of innocent children.
What type of society do we live in where school/mass shootings are so common that they run across 24-hour news channels tickers and we’ve become so numb it doesn’t even shock us anymore? If that isn’t enough to make people take action then I don’t know what is.
…and so again, for the second time in the last two weeks, my heart goes out to the families and friends of those senselessly taken from this world in Uvalde, Texas.
Fandango’s Provocative Question #166.
Prompt: Do you feel that President Biden’s plea to take action and to do something to stem the rising tide of gun violence in America have any impact? Or will lawmakers at both the federal and state levels do nothing more than offer their useless “thoughts and prayers,” which is all they ever do?
Date: 2022-05-25 | Tags: #fpq
Fandango’s One Word Challenge.
Prompt Word: Array
Date: 2022-05-25 | Tags: #fowc
Photo Credits: Unknown
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Thanks for your well articulated response. Unfortunately I agree. The reasons so many Americans believe training and arming teachers to carry in school is the answer is because the NRA had been extremely successful in its mantra: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
It’s unfortunate that the NRA has so many politicians — Republican politicians — in it’s pocket that the kinds of common sense gun controls you suggested are opposed and are unlikely to ever be enacted.
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Sadly I don’t see anyway this could change. Too many politicians are in the pocket of the NRA. Every other country that has had mass shootings (mine included) have taken steps to change the gun laws, most notably to restrict access to semi-automatic assault rifles to civilians, and each time that has worked. In fact the shooter that shot 51 Muslim people dead in my own city came from Australia. He expressly came to my country, and my own city, because we still allowed people to use semi-automatic rifles here and so it meant he could go on a mass killing spree (which mostly took place down the road from where I was living at the time). These weapons are not hunting rifles, they are made for killing people, anyone in the military can tell you that. I don’t see any reason why civilians would have need of these weapons. Even in the United States they banned them in the 1990s, and the number of mass shootings went down, and then began to rise again once the ban was lifted. Every other country in the world has known what to do when faced with this dilemma, yet the United States seems powerless to do anything about it and the right wing just offers up absurd answers that will never happen anyway. Even though the majority favour changes to the gun laws, the Republican party doesn’t and it will continue to block any effort to change them. They don’t really care if lots of children or black people die in shootings. Each time they’ll offer bullshit excuses and answers and then seek to ensure that nothing gets changed, while the rest of the world watches them in growing dismay.
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