Senseless doesn’t even begin to describe the tragedy of 19 dead children in a classroom. And yet, we will hear again from those in power who claim that their thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. And there will be another widening of the political divide as most elected Democrats clamor fruitlessly to want to institute any kind of gun reform, while the Republicans will call for prayers and deflect this latest horrifying example of gun violence into somehow being an attack on the Second Amendment. Predicting our politicians’ reaction to the second act of mass murder at the hands of a heavily armed person in less than two weeks is easy. That’s because nothing is going to change. Absolutely nothing.
Courtesy of the New York Times
I was in first grade when Adam Lanza massacred a classroom of children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the same age and grade as the victims. I remember my first-grade teacher didn’t talk about what happened…I only sort of found out what had happened when my mom picked me up from school. I had just turned seven, and I was pretty much thinking about playing with Legos all the time. It’s only now that I think about how those kids probably just wanted to go home after school and play with their Legos too. But they were forever robbed of their childhood, their future, and nothing changed.
When the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida happened, I was a little older, in 6th grade. My cousins lived in that school district at the time. I knew that it was another school shooting and we had a vigil and march at our local park. But for our leaders, it was all thoughts and prayers and pontification about how terrible it was that there was another school shooting. Once again, no one did anything.
Texas is the one state where there are almost no laws governing the sale and possession of guns. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, AR-47s, you name it. Turn 18 and they are all yours for the taking, carrying, concealing, or whatever you want to do with them. It is not lost on me that it is also a state that would rather secede from the union than surrender any of those rights. But it’s the bastardization of the Second Amendment that has brought us to this place, not the gun-loving nature of Texas.
The founding fathers intended the Second Amendment to ensure that no government could infringe upon the right of a newly minted loose confederation of states to bear arms. When the Bill of Rights was written, pistols and musket rifles that were single shot and required a horn of gunpowder to operate were the arms that they intended to ensure no government intervention was able to regulate. In the absolute wildest dreams of the founding fathers, they could not imagine even the mere idea of a machine gun or an automatic weapon. Despite the delusional insistence that these particular weapons were merely for sport and should escape any regulation, they were created to kill people. And they do a great job in their intent. They are incredibly effective and thorough. But dare anyone suggest even requiring a background check on anyone purchasing these weapons, and the political disinformation machine kicks into high gear and the people are convinced that regulation is unnecessary and un-American.
So, how many more murdered school kids is it actually going to take to force any meaningful changes to happen. 100? 1,000? What even is a meaningful change? I know the answer to these questions. There is no limit. And nothing, absolutely nothing, is ever going to change.
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