I was 10 years old when the Columbine shooting happened back in 1999. 26 years later, I feel like the discourse has barely shifted.
Yesterday’s events at the Kansas City Chief’s Victory Parade are just the latest in a long line of devastating days for the people of America, and before the sirens even stopped blaring, both sides retreated to their camps and began to retread the talking points that have been a part of my life for the last 26 years.
Before I even get into the crux of this article I want to state unequivocally, the shooting yesterday and the 100’s that mirror yesterday’s tragedy are a uniquely American phenomenon. Pretending that there is no issue, or that it will sort itself out is a borderline psychopathic belief at this stage of the game.
I am not here to advocate for a gun ban in America, (although an assault rifle ban VERY OBVIOUSLY pays dividends) but the days of saying “something, something, mental health” need to come to an end.
This discourse has devolved into one of the most childish conversations that can be had in this country, most people in politics or in my line of work have very clearly drawn a line in the sand, and there’s a couple of things that I think we all need to accept at a very basic level before we can begin to make any headway.
First of all, the way that a shooter identifies has little to no impact on how we should address gun control. That may seem like I’m speaking specifically about LGBTQ communities, but I promise, it’s much more than that (yet still very relevant this week).
Just in the last 10 days, we had a kid behead his father for not being MAGA enough, another allegedly beat his father to death for getting vaxxed, and a mega church was attacked by an individual who was mistakenly identified as trans (not that it mattered to some of the morons we have representing us in Congress).
After every one of these instances, the media and politicians were quick to pounce on the MAGA angle, or the conspiracy theorist angle, or the LGBTQ angle, instead of reconciling with the one unassailable truth of the matter:
We have A LOT of people in this country that want to harm large number of people they have never met.
So you can imagine my disdain when not an hour after the shooting happened, MSNBC was quick to point out that what happened wasn’t terrorism…
I’m sorry…what? Is this liberal speak for the shooter wasn’t Muslim?
I don’t know about any of you, but had I been in the situation, I would been pretty terrified, regardless of the religion the shooter practiced, which brings me to my second point.
This IS a mental health crisis, and that can be expressed through a number of different belief systems.
If someone engages in violent behavior and is also Christian, they are not violent BECAUSE they are Christian (Insert any religion/atheism and this still holds true). If someone engages in violent behavior and is very MAGA, or a big time “Bernie Bro”, they are not violent BECAUSE of their political affiliation.
When you continue down this train of thought, it is only a matter of time before someone, somewhere, is going to get violent and now you will be left scrambling to defend whatever identity group you belong to.
This is not helping matters, and only adds to the divisive nature of the conversation.
And lastly, the media (present company included) needs to do a better job discussing more traditional shootings (domestic disputes, gang violence, suicides, etc).
I think this is very important to highlight, much to the chagrin of my right wing counter parts, crime is going DOWN around the country, but unfortunately, gun violence is on the RISE.
We need to focus on isolated shooting incidents as frequently as we do mass shooting incidents, and realistically every level of media is failing on that regard.
I am not here calling for a police state, nor am I saying that I don’t think anybody should own a gun. Removing the tools for violence does not remove the desire for violence, and people are getting more and more creative.
One thing can not be ignored though: Happy people do not engage in violent behavior. We live in a country that has obliterated the social safety net. Hunger is more prevalent than it was during covid. Homes are unaffordable. Apartments are unaffordable. We have 2 generations of people getting more and more fed up with a stagnating life and I’d argue very clearly, they are turning to violence.
We can have a safer country, and not even touch the second amendment, but if that’s our goal, then it’s time for us, and specifically Republicans, to put our money where our mouth is, and start to fix a system that clearly used to work that has since been broken by a couple of bad actors.
I have a ton more to say about this, as do a number of my listeners. To hear the entire gun discussion today, click the player at the top of the article.
[Spreaker: Outside the Box, www.the-independent.com, www.nbcnews.com, fox4beaumont.com, www.pewresearch.org]
