Twenty six dead. Twenty of them children.
According to the Uniform Crime Reports for 2010 (the last year complete data is available), 67.5% of homicides were committed using firearms. Two-thirds.
Every time something like this happens, there are folks who scream, "But, they could use knives! Cars kill people! Law-abiding citizens!" Except, of course, guns are the weapon of choice. Why? Because they're readily available, there are simply no constraints either on purchasing the weapons themselves or ammunition for them, and, frankly, all the folks shouting "Second Amendment!" in effect have the back of the killer.
That may sound harsh, but bite me.
When I heard the news, I wanted to rush to my kids' schools and take them home. Of course, then the loon wins, right? In a world filled with guns, I have to remember I put my kids' lives on the line just by sending them to school.
I'm saddened by the events. I'm also enraged. I'm tired, too. I'm tired of hearing about how guns don't kill people, because there are 26 corpses, 20 of them quite small, that are giving mute testimony to the contrary. I'm tired of people offering prayers without doing much of anything else. Because, what? Is God a magician who will just magically make everything better? The Church is called the Body of Christ for a reason. We are the hands and feet and mouths and heart of the Living God. We want God to do something without risking anything ourselves.
So, um, no.
I started a petition at Change.org. It's really simple to understand. It calls for repeal of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Under current Constitutional law, there is nothing any legislature can do to interfere with anyone's desire to own a firearm. We want change? We want the killings to stop? Then sign the petition. We get 100 signatures, it can be featured on Change.org. Once that happens, we can get more people to link to it, more people to sign it.
Then, maybe - just maybe - we can start the real work of getting in touch with our elected representatives to start the long slog. Fighting to make America a safe, sane place in which to live and work and shop and live with another person and go to school will take a long time. It will take dealing with people who are quite willing to disagree with us in violent ways. It will take being yelled at a whole lot by people who, for all intents and purposes, would sacrifice a few thousand lives each year so some hunter somewhere isn't afraid black helicopters will zoom in and take his shotgun away.
Oh, and yes, I am politicizing this. You're goddamn right. I'm going to politicize the shit out of this, because that's the only way to get people moving.
I know I'm not going to win any popularity contests by doing this. That's OK. Because this isn't about me, and, frankly, it isn't about you, either. It's about all of us, every single American. We are long past the time when we should have realized it was time to put away our childish joy in guns.
According to the Uniform Crime Reports for 2010 (the last year complete data is available), 67.5% of homicides were committed using firearms. Two-thirds.
Every time something like this happens, there are folks who scream, "But, they could use knives! Cars kill people! Law-abiding citizens!" Except, of course, guns are the weapon of choice. Why? Because they're readily available, there are simply no constraints either on purchasing the weapons themselves or ammunition for them, and, frankly, all the folks shouting "Second Amendment!" in effect have the back of the killer.
That may sound harsh, but bite me.
When I heard the news, I wanted to rush to my kids' schools and take them home. Of course, then the loon wins, right? In a world filled with guns, I have to remember I put my kids' lives on the line just by sending them to school.
I'm saddened by the events. I'm also enraged. I'm tired, too. I'm tired of hearing about how guns don't kill people, because there are 26 corpses, 20 of them quite small, that are giving mute testimony to the contrary. I'm tired of people offering prayers without doing much of anything else. Because, what? Is God a magician who will just magically make everything better? The Church is called the Body of Christ for a reason. We are the hands and feet and mouths and heart of the Living God. We want God to do something without risking anything ourselves.
So, um, no.
I started a petition at Change.org. It's really simple to understand. It calls for repeal of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Under current Constitutional law, there is nothing any legislature can do to interfere with anyone's desire to own a firearm. We want change? We want the killings to stop? Then sign the petition. We get 100 signatures, it can be featured on Change.org. Once that happens, we can get more people to link to it, more people to sign it.
Then, maybe - just maybe - we can start the real work of getting in touch with our elected representatives to start the long slog. Fighting to make America a safe, sane place in which to live and work and shop and live with another person and go to school will take a long time. It will take dealing with people who are quite willing to disagree with us in violent ways. It will take being yelled at a whole lot by people who, for all intents and purposes, would sacrifice a few thousand lives each year so some hunter somewhere isn't afraid black helicopters will zoom in and take his shotgun away.
Oh, and yes, I am politicizing this. You're goddamn right. I'm going to politicize the shit out of this, because that's the only way to get people moving.
I know I'm not going to win any popularity contests by doing this. That's OK. Because this isn't about me, and, frankly, it isn't about you, either. It's about all of us, every single American. We are long past the time when we should have realized it was time to put away our childish joy in guns.
