The last piece I contributed to this forum was last Wednesday, November 16, 2022. It was entitled Mass Shootings: An American Institution. Admittedly it was a retelling—in part—of the mass shooting at the University of Virginia. Their football coach Tony Elliot said about the three young men who died in that shooting, “These were incredible young men with huge aspirations and extremely bright futures.” Cannot that statement be made after each mass shooting from Columbine to Buffalo to Uvalde? Still, my point was to point out the obscene apathy that America has accepted following mass murder.
The recent election will see a change in leadership in the House of Representatives, and the first thing on the Republican agenda is political revenge, not solutions to problems; say gun violence. The GOP revenge plan is not based on wrongdoing but on grievances. Republicans are aggrieved that they are being held hostage by a criminal who heads their party. In reality, they have no one to blame but themselves and the constituency they have chosen and groomed. I would love the morality the GOP preaches, and the “what about the kids” mantra—they profess—would apply as much to saving post-birth lives instead of viewing women as incubators.
Democrats have introduced legislation that would not stop all gun violence but would save some lives. There is empirical evidence of a drop in mass shootings following the assault weapons ban during the Clinton administration. When the ten-year assault weapons ban that began in 1994 ended, studies were inconclusive but leaned toward its effectiveness. Assault weapons shootings dropped 17 percent during that period. The hollow wishes from people like Congressperson Lauren Boebert, who sent out the obligatory “prayers” to the families of the shooting victims of a gay club in Colorado, rings hollow when she has denounced the gay community over and over. In 2021 she called the LGBTQ Equality Act “supremacy of gays and lesbians and transvestites.” She has repeatedly accused the gay community of ‘grooming’ children and tweeted in August of this year,A “kid-friendly” drag show in Texas was guarded by masked ANTIFA guards armed with AR-15’s. Remember, they only want YOUR guns. They want to use theirs to protect their depravity.
Sure this is unhinged trolling to the nth degree, but too often, someone dies after listening to dangerous rhetoric. Many of the legislative initiatives introduced by Democrats to stem the tide of relentless gun violence, especially assault weapons, have been thwarted by Republicans. In 2012 former President Obama sought to limit high-capacity magazines and tighten background checks. In 2014, Senate Republicans defeated a bill that would have funded states’ efforts to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. In 2015, the Republican-led Senate defeated a bill banning people on a federal terrorism watch list from buying firearms, noting errors on the list as the reasoning.
The commitment to guns is so vital to the Republican brand they fought Mr. Trump on bump stocks. Congressional Republicans stopped a law outlawing bump stocks, and he made it a federal regulation. Thoughts and prayers after a mass shooting now include apathy, which will be the death of us all.
Continue to Vote for Change.