.JPEG)
As I began to draft this my thoughts morphed into a discussion on gun control itself. I realized that I was mixing the two issues, gun control and if politicians really want changes to our laws as they relate to firearm possession. These two should be discussed but done so as individual topics in order that they each receive the consideration they should have, for that reason I will write a follow up article.
Over the past week America was witness to mass shooting incidents that took many lives. Right on que politicians began to blame the NRA, lenient laws, the President’s statements and tone, Republican leadership and the extremist “right wing”, they just shook the dust off an old script and away they went. Before the scene was secure and it could be determined if the gunman acted alone, before the investigations could be conducted, even before the bodies of the dead were removed and returned to their loved ones so they could grieve, politicians began to express their “outrage” and demand more strict laws!
Their actions and how quickly they began placing blame without any information makes me wonder how sincere they are? I said that politicians shook the dust off an old script because they once again said the same things that were said in the past. I won’t say politicians like it when a mass casualty gun crime occurs but I will say that they believe in what Rahm Emanuel (former Chief of Staff for President Obama and former Mayor of Chicago) has said, “Don’t waste a crisis” and “You never let a serious crisis go to waste”. However, they don’t act on the rest of the second quote which is “And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
If you think I’m wrong just take a moment and think, as soon as news alerts go out about an incident, politicians begin to fain anger and insist that “we” need stricter gun laws. While first responders are still treating victims and ensuring that all suspects have been stopped and public safety is restored politicians run in front of news cameras to express outrage at our lax laws and then, almost as an afterthought express concern for those still alive and condolences for those that died. What’s worse and helps make my point is the inevitable fundraising that occurs over a mass shooting, in some cases the fundraising begins while bodies are still laying where the victims fell.
Politicians aren’t sincere or serious about wanting gun control because we (society) don’t want them to be! Oh, people will insist that I’m wrong and that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about! But I say I’m right because people want a reason to criticize those that have a different point of view then they do. More recently people need another issue to use to demonstrate that the current occupant of the White House is to blame while not holding his predecessors responsible for incidents that occurred during their terms. We want something else that we can use to condemn those that don’t share our point of view. Fund raisers say send us your money so we can reduce violence, but have you noticed that they never tell you how they will do it. I take that back, they tell you that with your financial help we will get members of the other political party voted out of office and then we can make changes. My question is what changes? The ability to implement changes already exists if we were serious about preventing such incidents in the future, but that would require us to work together instead of yelling at one another. We would have to acknowledge those incidents in which a person legally possessing a firearm was able to stop some of these attacks. We would have to accept that this is not a Republican or Democratic problem and we would have to start and put the blame where it belongs, on the offender. We would have to blame the parent that left a firearm in a place where their angry or mentally ill child could take their gun.
We must stop seeing gun violence as a means to attack those that don’t share our same political views. Until we can do that and stop looking for ways to financially benefit from a mass casualty incident meaningful changes will never happen. The first step to reducing these mass casualty incidents and hopefully stop them is to acknowledge what went wrong and correct that. If the current laws weren’t followed or someone chose to circumvent the laws, we need to hold that person(s) accountable regardless of their political or other affiliations! Then we need to fix and enforce our current laws before creating new ones, but that leads into gun control which is part 2.
Politicians are supposed to be representatives of we the people so until we get serious about wanting gun control our politicians will continue their current agenda! When will the body count reach a level that we and our representatives decide to get serious? Sadly, I don’t think we’re there yet!!
That’s my opinion, what’s yours
