What I Want to Hear on Gun Violence

I don’t believe any of the Democratic candidates for President get it. Trump, who views virtually everything from a position of self-interest, couldn’t understand the issues related to gun violence in American under any circumstance. As far as I’m concerned even the progressive pundits can’t articulate an understanding, and the sooo “compassionate” Christian Conservatives don’t really give a damn.

If what happened at Sandy Hook wasn’t enough to bring this large, highly diverse nation together it should be no surprise that over two thousand mass shootings have occurred since that horrendous event. (https://www.vox.com/a/mass-shootings-america-sandy-hook-gun-violence)

Personally, I am tired of Trump Republicans and Conservatives as a whole sympathetically embracing the NRA’s view that gun violence has everything to do with the shooter and nothing to do with the weapon. However, I’m equally frustrated with Progressive Liberals who react to each mass killing with the call for political changes so “this will never happen again”.

Given that this issue will certainly come up in the next Democrat Debate, here is the two minute response I want to hear from at least one of the candidates:

America, the rhetoric being fed to you does not address the reality of gun violence in America nor does it provide even the semblance of a solution.

Our Country is unique in the world regarding guns. We have created a normalcy that certain individuals look to gun violence as a means to solve their anxieties, fears, and delusions. They may represent only the tip of an anti-social iceberg, built by the kind of hatred articulated by someone like Donald Trump, but in a nation of 330 million that puts hundreds or perhaps thousands on unstable paths to arbitrarily murder and maim.

Here’s the reality America: these mass shooting are going to happen again, and again, and again, and again, and again…and again. They are going to keep happening until the people of this Nation collectively begin to communicate to their children and grandchildren that solving their individual problems with a gun (which includes suicide) is unthinkable.

This is not done by endlessly displaying the misery caused by each killing. It is by the Nation rising up and embracing legislation which says to these children that we as a nation do not accept behavior that uses guns as a means to an end.  It is done by creating a moral imperative.

 In a democracy laws are nothing more than socially acceptable ethics. It’s what laws do…it’s what they’ve always done. We do it with automobiles, we should be able to do it with guns.

What can be done? Identity checks, size of magazines, elimination of assault weapons, strong regulation of handguns,  gun buybacks, increased regulation of non-military weapon manufacturers, defense of gun-free zones, gun registration and large financial penalties for violations, and large financial penalties for unregulated sales, to name a few…none of which would keep any ordinary citizen from owning a gun. 

With 300 million guns already loose in America, it isn’t the elimination of these weapons that will create change, it’s how our children view them.

If we started today then maybe in one or two generations we might start to see a turnaround in the rate of mass shootings and overall gun related deaths and injuries. The later we start then the greater the despair we inflict on those children and grandchildren we claim to love so much.