At the recent Billboard Music Awards, Clarkson was supposed to lead a moment of silence to honor the victims of the recent school shooting in Texas, which had taken place just days earlier.
She refused, however, but her reasons for refusing were rather stunning and, frankly, refreshing.
To her credit, Clarkson seems to understand the futility of such symbolic actions like moments of silence, or public figures (particularly politicians) offering their “thoughts and prayers,” only to have to offer them again within months, if not weeks, when yet another huge mass shooting takes place again somewhere else.
Through tears, Clarkson said:
“I’m so sick of moments of silence, it’s not working, like, obviously.
“So why don’t we not do a moment of silence? Why don’t we do a moment of action? Why don’t we do a moment of change? Why don’t we change what’s happening? Because it’s horrible.”
Clarkson did not elaborate on what this action meant, and it was not entirely clear that Clarkson, who once admitted to NPR that she owned nine guns and slept with a Colt .45, had limits to gun access on her mind as at least one potential action to take.
Still, she did not simply take the easy way out by leading the moment of silence, or herself offering her “thoughts and prayers” to the families of the victims. She has grown tired, like millions of other haves, of lip service and wearing supposed sympathy on one’s sleeves, while offering no real solutions, and taking no serious actions.
One thing is for certain: this is becoming a source of national embarrassment, even disgrace. The United States has what appears to be the most lenient gun laws of any developed nation in the world. Meanwhile, incidents of gun violence here in the United States greatly outnumber not only the gun violence seen in other countries, but outnumber many other nations combined, in terms of gun violence. Death by gun violence often numbers in the single digits or, at most, the dozens in many other nations in a typical year. But here in the United States, it systematically numbers in the thousands. And many people cannot help but make the seemingly obvious correlation between the ready availability of guns, and the staggering levels of gun violence that plagues the United States.
Maybe Clarkson did not specifically identify the easy access to guns as the problem, but let’s face it: that sure seems to be the difference between gun violence here in the United States, and the general lack thereof in other countries. After all, the issues that many gun rights advocates and staunch NRA supporters suggest, like mental instability and economic factors, exist in other nations as well. What those other countries lack is the very quick and easy access to guns, like we have here in the United States.
Here is the link to the article on Clarkson's refusal to simply do a moment of silence, urging some sort of concrete action instead:
Kelly Clarkson, a Gun Owner, Urges Action at Billboard Music Awards by Sopan Deb, May 21, 2018:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
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