The problem that Governor Abbott of Texas is having, is the mass shootings are happening too close together. Forget the fact that one should have been enough for legislative action, the one thing he and the rest of the Republican Party had going for them was America’s ability to forget. Now the shootings are happening so quick that society hasn’t even finished the thoughts and prayers needed for the last one.
Or are we? When it’s not affecting us personally, we forget about the shootings pretty fast. It doesn’t take long after the funerals to move on to the next thing in the news cycle, does it? But we can’t forget them anymore. We’ve had more mass shootings this year than days, and it’s only the beginning of May. People are being murdered. They didn’t die of old age or a disease, but rather in a mass shooting in a public place.
Well, all of this tends to simply be criticism of Republicans if you’re not willing to offer solutions. So, I thought I should (again) lay out some ideas that could help.
Red flag laws: We need to know who the person is before they leave a store with a weapon. Are they guilty of domestic abuse? Do their neighbors ever feel threatened? Have they started a bar fight in the local VFW for no apparent reason? We need to know about things like this, as there’s no reason a man kicked out of the Army with extreme beliefs posted on social media should be able to get a gun. The shooter in Allen, Texas did that exact thing and should’ve been flagged.
This will cause a longer waiting period. But quite frankly, I don’t give a damn.
The universal age to buy a gun should be 21. This one is pretty simple to me. If you’re not old enough to buy a beer, you sure shouldn’t be able to buy an AK-47 or 9mm.
The size of the clips should also be reduced. When I go hunting in North Dakota, I can only have three shells in my shotgun. And that’s when I’m trying to shoot a pheasant. Why in the hell would we let someone have a 30 round clip? It only results in more bullets through a rifle at a quicker pace.
None of these things will get done though, because the Republican Party doesn’t want them done. It isn’t what the NRA wants. And we all know that for Republicans, the NRA makes the rules.
At this point, how does change happen? How do we finally see this country address the leading cause of death for children in the US?
I think we need to show the world our children that have been victims. I don’t mean the photos at their funerals surrounded by flowers. No, I think parents should consider showing their children as they found them after the shootings.
Can you imagine the affect a billboard along the interstate with a faceless child would have? A picture of a mother holding her child for the last time, knowing she’s the only one that’ll ever know that beautiful human taken too early from the Earth. Imagine a billboard so graphic, you have to cover your children’s eyes every time you drive by.
You wouldn’t want to see a billboard like that, no one would. You’d drive by that billboard once and you’d never take that route again. But you could avoid it and drive around it simply by buying more gas and taking a different route.
But the mothers and fathers that have lost their kids to shootings can’t drive around it. That image is carved into that mother’s brain. Each and every day, hundreds of times a day, that mother will see the image in her head. That mother’s baby that had his or her whole life ahead of them, now taken away as they were shot to death.
Maybe it’s time we all saw that image. Or better yet, maybe it’s time we all started to look.
Good riding with you,
Joel
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