Why Gun Control Laws Need to Change

A powerful message:

Amanda Knief shared this on Facebook. It really drives the point home: the Second Amendment was written in a time when one person couldn’t so easily unleash catastrophic destruction. We need to have serious conversations about this, not this kabuki theater where politicians posture and ultimately can’t even pass the slightest control measures because they’re pants-pissing scared of the NRA.

Consider this (h/t):

If only Americans reacted the same way to the actual threats that exist in their country. There’s something quite fitting and ironic about the fact that the Boston freak-out happened in the same week the Senate blocked consideration of a gun control bill that would have strengthened background checks for potential buyers. Even though this reform is supported by more than 90% of Americans, and even though 56 out of 100 senators voted in favour of it, the Republican minority prevented even a vote from being held on the bill because it would have allegedly violated the second amendment rights of “law-abiding Americans”.

So for those of you keeping score at home – locking down an American city: a proper reaction to the threat from one terrorist. A background check to prevent criminals or those with mental illness from purchasing guns: a dastardly attack on civil liberties. All of this would be almost darkly comic if not for the fact that more Americans will die needlessly as a result. Already, more than 30,000 Americans die in gun violence every year (compared to the 17 who died last year in terrorist attacks).

[snip]

The same day of the marathon bombing in Boston, 11 Americans were murdered by guns. The pregnant Breshauna Jackson was killed in Dallas, allegedly by her boyfriend. In Richmond, California, James Tucker III was shot and killed while riding his bicycle – assailants unknown. Nigel Hardy, a 13-year-old boy in Palmdale, California, who was being bullied in school, took his own life. He used the gun that his father kept at home. And in Brooklyn, New York, an off-duty police officer used her department-issued Glock 9mm handgun to kill herself, her boyfriend and her one-year old child.

At the same time that investigators were in the midst of a high-profile manhunt for the marathon bombers that ended on Friday evening, 38 more Americans – with little fanfare – died from gun violence. One was a 22-year old resident of Boston. They are a tiny percentage of the 3,531 Americans killed by guns in the past four months – a total that surpasses the number of Americans who died on 9/11 and is one fewer than the number of US soldiers who lost their lives in combat operations in Iraq. Yet, none of this daily violence was considered urgent enough to motivate Congress to impose a mild, commonsense restriction on gun purchasers.

We need to think more clearly, people. Priorities. Straighten them.

And for fuck’s sake, give a nineteen year-old American kid his civil rights. We’re better than this. We should be far better than those two dumbfucks. Yet here we are, wanting to strip a kid who was probably brainwashed by his brother and is now more than likely shit-scared of his constitutional rights. We’ll give those rights to white Christian terrorists, no problem. But white Muslim American immigrant bombers? Nope. Because too many of us are so easily talked out of our principles. Because too many of us completely lose our shit when it comes to Muslims committing crimes. And our President is far too willing to go along.

The assholes who bombed the Boston marathon were despicable cowards. The worst thing is, in many respects, we’re not that much better. Those of us who have courage need to be holding our politicians’ feet to the fire.

And we need to expect better of them (h/t).

We need to demand better of us.

And we need to reassess our relationship with guns. Now.

Think about this, folks. Image courtesy Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.
Think about this, folks. Image courtesy Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.
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Why Gun Control Laws Need to Change
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4 thoughts on “Why Gun Control Laws Need to Change

  1. 1

    But but but if Ed had been wearing a bandolier with half a dozen pistols… /sarcasm.

    The second paragraph that you quote nails it. Why is it ok to shut down an entire city to hunt one criminal, but not ok to perform a background check on anyone purchassing a firearm?

  2. rq
    3

    Is it bad that the video made me giggle? Mostly from relief, because I was expecting something horrible.
    And it is a serious subject – I’m all for tighter gun control everywhere, and more education and more background checks and more follow-ups and limitations on the kinds of weapons the average person can buy (I’m all for limiting it to old-fashioned muskets, like in the video). I just wish some people would see how much they frighten the rest of us with their aggressive attitude and giant weapons collection.

  3. 4

    It is so deflating to have the U.S. senate fail to pass mild, and eminently sane, restrictions on gun ownership. One feels like throwing their hands in the air with defeat.
    It is important to keep the dialogue going, the outrage, and continued exposition of damage and violence due to the ubiquitous presence of these weapons. You put this problem in excellent perspective.

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