Questions
The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn. Credit: Aaron M Sprecher/EPA, via Shutterstock
We ask the same questions every time after it happens:
Why did this happen?
How did it happen?
Why didn’t anyone prevent it from happening?
Why don’t we do something about it, so it doesn’t happen again?
What’s going on?
It could be that society here in the States is worse off after 2020, but that’s probably true about a lot of countries around the world. Things are bad everywhere, and in the U.S., we have a unique problem. Well, we have a few issues that are exclusively American, but we have a ridiculously high number of mass shootings here, and, apparently not enough of the right people who could immediately affect change on gun policy care about it. The buck has been passed for decades. How many more people have to die this way? In churches. In grocery stores. In a movie theater. At school. At church. At a concert. Standing outside a restaurant.
Isn’t that absurd?
These are just the locations of mass shootings from the last ten years that I could remember off the top of my head. I bet I forgot a some, too. There was the 2015 shooting in San Bernardino that happened at an office Christmas party. I lived near that place. I remember the initial wave of panic hitting me when I heard there was a shooting in San Bernardino. I have family who work in that city and go to school there, so when I hear that news, that’s immediately where my first thoughts go.
Every new mass shooting is worse than the previous one, and we have so many that it’s hard to keep track of how many times we’ve had to endure this here in the U.S..
How many more?
President Biden said what a lot of folks already know: people have mental health issues all over the world; people have domestic violence issues all over the world; bigots and racists and extreme hate groups exist in other countries, so why do so many mass shootings happen in the U.S.?
Access to guns here is easy.
How easy?
Well, you could 3D print functional gun parts at home and build your own gun. If you live in a state with strict gun laws, you could drive to a state with relaxed gun laws, buy an assault rifle, and smuggle it home. Or, if you live in a state with relaxed gun laws, like Texas, you could legally purchase an assault rifle and, say, around 375 rounds of ammunition, as long as you’re 18 and have a clean record, for…hunting?
Why do we need to own assault rifles?
”Because this is America, and it’s my Constitutional right.” Indeed it is. I’m not sure if the founding fathers had this type of bullshit in mind when they drafted the Constitution two hundred and fifty years ago. Maybe we should make a change. Maybe, since many of us here are too selfish to make a few concessions, like a ban on assault rifle and body armor sales, maybe we can compromise. We can keep the 2nd Amendment; we can keep a gun in the house, but it can only be a revolver, and there will be a limit on how much ammunition you can own.
Will that make a difference?
It will. Any change probably will. Anything that can be done to protect us, our moms and dads, our siblings, our children, our loved ones…because everyone is a target here now, and anyone can be a suspect. Things are bad everywhere now, and people, lonely, sad, angry, misshapen men, young and old, will want to lash out and destroy other people’s lives, twisted by hate-filled rhetoric and stress and a sense of hopelessness…my GOD, this is how so many people feel.
Why do we have to keep killing each other?
