My heart hurts – again, or maybe really still. These have gotten so common that I fear we (as a nation) will just get used to them. Please DO NOT look at this as normal. In a way, it is, in the sense that they are starting to be usual & expected. But here’s the thing – they shouldn’t be either.
Two mass shootings in less than 24 hours is abhorrent. That is on top of the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting right before that. Mass shootings have become so commonplace that I really wasn’t surprised when I did a quick internet search and found that in the past 8 days (the article was written on 8/5/19) there had been a couple other shootings that I either hadn’t heard of, or that didn’t register with me. Did I ever think that I could hear of mass shootings without at least registering them in my brain?
We can continue to blame immigrants & people of color for these mass shootings, but that ignores the fact that a large number of these events are done by young white men. And we can continue to say it is a mental health issue, and for some of these shooters it may be, but that doesn’t stop the shootings. These are home-grown terrorists who shoot up events with guns & ammunition that they often purchase legally. This has got to stop.
And a lot of these shootings are done by people who think they are doing this because it is what the orange guy in the White House wants. It would be nice if he were to unequivocally state that this is not what he wants, but I don’t think I will hold my breath. Although, I do sometimes think that he lies about everything else, why can’t he at least lie about that?
I am sick of hearing that “it’s not the guns.” Well, no duh, it’s people with the guns that do this. We do not need assault weapons on the streets. We do not need people to have ammunition clips that hold hundreds of bullets. Come on, Congress, do your job! Even smart republicans (yes, there still are some, though they tend to keep quiet most of the time) are starting to say out loud that perhaps there should be some limits placed on gun ownership. I am all for someone owning a rifle so they can hunt, but really, if you need an assault weapon to hunt with, you are not much of a hunter, are you!
I hope and pray that this is the last time I have to write about shootings, but my expectation is that it won’t be.
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