I am sympathetic toward people who are bullied and ridiculed, especially kids. I have even more empathy for the mentally ill, who are the victims of violence more than offenders. Three nine-year-olds and three sexagenarians’ lives were torn apart, literally and figuratively, by what is being described as a calculated mass murder Monday morning in Nashville, Tennessee. Instead of addressing the latest tragedy, gun warriors would spend time disarming Michelangelo's David’s little gun “for fun,” in the words of drill sergeant Hartman, rather than taking away the full metal jacket of child murderers. I like to pride myself on rationality and factual argument, but even I am getting tired of suppressing my anger over another loss of our collective futures. Who knows what life-changing discoveries we may never see from one of the hundreds of dead children we bury annually? Charles Drew, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., and Elvis were all children who survived grade school.
The gun epidemic has gotten so bad in America that we are exporting murder. The LA Times published an article in 2018 about the only place to buy a legal gun in Mexico. Located near Mexico City, entrance into the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales requires ‘months of background checks — six documents are required — and then be frisked by uniformed soldiers.’ It is reported that the store sells roughly 38 guns per day while over 500 are smuggled into Mexico from the United States. Famously Donald Trump pointed the finger at Mexico and called its’ citizens murderers and rapist while at the same time being armed by America. As of 2018, the Department of Justice reported that 70 percent of the guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico had U.S. origins.
America was held in breathless anticipation over four Americans who were attacked in Matamoros, Mexico March 3rd. The three men and one woman from South Carolina were confronted by gun-wielding cartel members who mistook them for Haitian drug dealers, and two men were murdered. I wonder what the chances were that the guns were manufactured and taken across the southern border into Mexico. Whenever one of our schools and its children are terrorized, the gun excuse machine gears start turning: it is mental health, it was an unlocked door, a cowardly sheriff, it is video games, music, and movies, but for the gun defenders (especially of the revered AR-15) it is never the gun.
Predictably, the usual suspects defended their love interest, blue steel Mary. Of the latest murders in Nashville, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) responded to a question from CNN’s Manu Raju: “Let’s not get into emotion, because emotion feels good, but emotion doesn’t solve problems.” I doubt if one of the emotional parents or loved ones of the three adults killed feels good. Texas Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz, called for more guns in school—oh no, wait, that was in Uvalde, Texas. About the Covenant School, “One armed officer could have stopped this lunatic, BEFORE a child was killed,”Cruz tweeted. I guess Ted was on vacation—again—and missed the news about the multiple “brave” officers at Robb Elementary.
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