After the latest mass shooting of children, I cringe with disgust at my fellow citizens crowing incessantly and selfishly about their right to own and carry an AR-15.
As their toxic attitude elbows its way to the forefront of a national discussion on safety, we watch news coverage of funeral processions for the 19 elementary school children slaughtered by that weapon.
It’s fucking infuriating.
I’m tired of the threadbare and ill-fitting argument that tries to square a 233-year-old constitutional amendment with the right of an 18-year-old fast-food worker to purchase a weapon designed for inflicting mass casualties. The argument collides inhumanely with grief-stricken and shell-shocked parents with pierced hearts and tattered psyches.
With images of their dead children still fresh in their minds, grieving parents listened to a United States congressman argue his constituents need the AR-15 to shoot varments.
We should be enraged by what happened in Uvalde, Texas. But, we should be just as enraged by what’s not happening in the aftermath.
Small and incremental change in the face of a full-blown public safety crisis is like placing a band-aid on an AR-15 gunshot wound to the head of a 9-year-old. We need substantial changes to our gun laws if we’re genuinely interested in saving lives.
Tweaking existing regulations around the edges is mere window-dressing for politicians. It will do very little to prevent the next mass shooting.
bendingtheneedle 