I am trying not to revisit the school shooting last week, or the topic of gun violence and the sensible restrictions to gun access that poll after poll shows most Americans support, but which simply never pass.
Now, I will try not to get too much into this. This is a topic which, frankly, I find depressing and infuriating. Sometimes, it almost seems pointless, for that matter. Many of the people who stand opposed to any even modest reforms to the lax gun laws - and make no mistake, they are a fringe minority - just remain willfully blind to the obvious reality.
To illustrate this point, take a look at the politicians who continually oppose any kind of tougher gun laws, even background checks. They often seem to run away from the argument one way or another. They will suggest that anybody who responds to these kinds of horrors by demanding tougher gun laws is "politicizing" a tragedy. Meanwhile, they themselves seem to be politicizing it systematically, by supporting the NRA and, most importantly, taking NRA money, regardless of how horrific these shootings are getting. About the only thing that was banned in recent years following one of these mass shootings were the bump stocks, following the Las Vegas shooting.
You look at how their arguments, and their finger of blame, seems to shift with each new shooting, and each time that the public begins to really demand action, and their line or argument always seems to change. The only thing that remains consistent if their dismissal that any kind of limitation of the too easy access to guns in this country. Otherwise, they change their reason. Armed guards will solve the problem. It is a mental health issue. More guns will resolve the issue, because, as this line of reasoning goes, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Arm teachers.
The most recent argument, championed evidently by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the state where the recent shooting took place, is that these buildings should have only one main entrance, and that's it. Why have so many points of entry? Make one entrance to the building that everybody has to go through and exit from, and that will surely take care of the problem.
Well, first of all, that would be a fire hazard. Also, if a shooter gains control of that one entrance/exit, how will anyone escape? Wouldn't the shooter then basically be able to increase the number of victims?
This feels like just the latest and, so far, the most desperate attempt by a shameless politician clearly indebted to the NRA, and desperately trying to make an argument - any argument - on how possibly to prevent these mass shootings without looking at the most obvious cause. It is a ridiculous argument, one that takes possibly one minute - if that - before finding all of the gaping holes in this most recent line of reasoning. No, we cannot make simply one entrance and exit to schools or other public buildings for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it would be a fire hazard, and if somehow this escaped the attention of a local Fire Marshall, it would nevertheless become clearly a problem the first time that there was some kind of fire or emergency, and either people got trapped needlessly, or there was a stampede. Also, a mass shooter who manages to get control of this door would then control not just one classroom or section of a building, but literally the entire building, since nobody can escape any other way.
Those are just two huge problems that I noticed, and it took maybe ten seconds to see them. How somebody as influential as Ted Cruz could, with a straight face, suggest such a mind-numbingly stupid idea is beyond me. It smacks of just another desperate grasp for straws by a man a little too used to being on the wrong side of this argument. Politicians like Cruz always try and come up with some kind of solution that does not include the most obvious: more sensible gun laws that make it a bit tougher to acquire assault or semi-assault weapons.
Their arguments have gravitated to some degree, but with no clear arc, no seeming defining point. No end point, either, because their arguments keep changing every time their previous argument proves to have been ineffective. At first, it was to make sure that schools had armed guards. Then, it was mental health, although no real serious solution to better or more affordable access to mental health care was offered. After that, it was that teachers should have access to guns, and even the responsibility for teachers to be prepared to kill kids, if necessary. My own question is, if it took police officers at Littleton and Uvalde so much time to engage a killer with an AR-15, how can we expect teachers to be even braver? Now, some are saying that tall fences around all American schools could be the answer. And Ted Cruz is suggesting that one entrance to public buildings - and especially schools - is the new cure for all of our ills.
Throughout all of these arguments, even easier access to guns seems to be the one constant, their one line of reasoning that indeed has remained true from the beginning. Yet, if the answer to curb gun violence is to add still more guns, then it would stand to reason that the United States, the country with far and away the most guns of any country in the world, would also be the country with the least gun violence. But here we are, after another mass shooting, and with the United States far and away leading all advanced nations in all meaningful gun violence statistics. No other country with an advanced economy has anywhere near the level of problems with gun violence that we do here in this country. Canada does not have anything similar. Neither does any European country. Nor does Australia. or New Zealand. Or Japan. South Korea. Singapore. None of them even come remotely close to us in terms of obvious problems with gun violence. And it is not a spineless, cowardly turd like Ted Cruz, who simply, conveniently, ignores this obvious truth.
No, we are not going to get any real answers to this problem from "leaders" such as Cruz. They are too cowardly, too ethically compromised - in other words, they epitomize the very worst traits that the term politicians conjures up in our public imagination - to actually have any serious answers to a real problem. What it will take is the bravery to be honest, and to look at this problem clearly, without flinching. And that means taking a look at what has actually worked. Yes, including (perhaps especially) in other countries. And then, we need to make a decision, to take action, and see how it works out. Because right now, it feels like we go through this over and over again, arguing until we are blue in the face. And then, inevitably, the issues gets bogged down by compromised politicians like Cruz and other spineless "leaders" just like him in Washington, until absolutely nothing is done, and nothing changes. Then, we wait until the next major mass shooting, and this absurd cycle begins again. More often than not, we will not have long to wait.
Unfortunately, that is what most of us are expecting this time around, as well. We have to hear all about "thoughts and prayers," and we have to hear other ridiculous "solutions" by mindless, spineless morons posing as real leaders, but who are in fact a big part of the problem themselves. To me, Cruz and others have blood on their hands, and I do not say that lightly. And until we put these pathetic excuse for "leaders" in our past, this cycle will continue, and we will be faced with these same horrific stories, this same absurd problem that so much of the rest of the world seems to have figured out, but which we, somehow, have not. Because Frankly, it is not only tragic. It is starting to be embarrassing, as well, as it is just one more of a number of problems that we seem incapable of even approaching, let alone resolving. And these problems underscore some of the other things that seem to have gone wrong with the country.
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