Same dastardly deed, different destination. On Monday of this week, a Tennessee resident morphed into a murderous predator, gunning down six people at a Nashville elementary school: including three 9-year-old students, and 3 sexagenarian staff members.
I could detail the particulars of this case, at least the ones that are known, as the investigation is still unfolding. But not this time. I’m not going to discuss in any further detail, what happened in Nashville.
Ultimately, Nashville is not the point. This matter is an instance of an oft repeated saga that is known for many predictable outcomes, including, but not limited to…unspeakable grief, countless utterances of thoughts and prayers, a surreal political Tango, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing. There will be anger, anguish, and anxiety, remorse, reticence, and regret, faux indignation, fraught conversations, and fatigue. Most of all, there will be a whole lot of denial that guns are in any way responsible for the spiraling contagion that is gun violence in America.
The political polar opposites are locked in an intractable battle, one side arguing from a logical premise, backed by well-reasoned points, and predicated on voluminous research, while the other stands on a zealous adherence to belief that no matter how many people, children, the elderly, and every age group in between, die from gun violence, virtually every “American” has a right to gun ownership, right up to, and including, until they kill someone. In fact, unless one lives in Chicago (the city most often mentioned when defending that position), or some other urban (Black) community, there is no compunction about collecting and owning as many firearms as possible, mass murders notwithstanding.
I believe in the Second Amendment, and I have no fundamental issue with gun ownership. I have a permit to purchase a handgun, and a Concealed Carry Permit (CCP). I get it. At the same time, I am a proponent of additional common sense gun reform measures. I believe the two positions, believing in the right to own a firearm in general, and in supporting responsible gun ownership, and provisions for obtaining a gun, are not mutually exclusive. Two things can be true at once.
So, in case there was any doubt, this is an opinion piece. In my opinion, the level of access to guns in America, Second Amendment notwithstanding, should be more restrictive than it is now. The killing fields, also know as Anytown, USA, are negatively impacted by the too easy access to guns. The ready default of conservatives is frequently, it’s not a gun problem, it’s a mental health problem. The duplicitous nature of this argument is revealed when many of the same pols who make that argument refuse to support measures to deny gun access to persons shown to be demonstrably mentally ill. Stop the charade; please, before the madness comes to your town (in the event it hasn’t already done so). “Nightmare In Nashville: Another School Shooting!”
I’m done; holla back!
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