Please stop this. I opened up the Tribune app on my iPad this morning (coffee and the morning paper for the 21st century), and the top two stories greeting me - a shooting outside the Empire State Building which killed two and wounded ten more, and NINETEEN shootings in my beloved Chicago overnight. Please. Let's stop killing each other.
And, for the love of God, let's start having a mature conversation about this. Conservatives, nobody wants to take away your all of your guns. There is not going to be a civil war if Obama is re-elected. That big panic in 2008, when many of you went on a gun-and-ammo buying spree before Obama's inauguration? You can still buy all of those things. OK, yes, some of us would like to see military-grade assault weapons taken off the market, but let's all be honest - you don't need those to go hunting, or really do much of anything other than go into movie theatres and shoot scores of people. That's why they're assault weapons - they're designed for that. Creeping tyranny will not take over because you do not have enough AR-15s in your woodshed to arm a platoon of counter-insurgents. Conspiracy theories look just as bad on reasonable people who lean right-of-center as they do on oddball left-wingers who think that Wall Street and the military are colluding to take over the country and set up death camps in the desert for all the liberals, atheists, people of color, and homosexuals. Start acting reasonable, stop believing everything that big money NRA lobbyists throw out at you, and let's have a conversation about how, perhaps, we DO need reasonable gun control policies so that law-abiding citizens like you can own guns without having to fear for your lives in public when somebody packing more heat comes along.
Liberals, stop acting like every conservative and/or gun owner is some sort of Wild West caricature who wants to walk around with "a big iron on his hip" to be more macho. OK, there are probably a few of those types out there, but not many. Let's agree to make the reasonable assumption that 95%+ of gun owners are hunters and people who enjoy target shooting and, ok, yes, probably do feel safer with a gun in their home, but also have no intention of using it. Let's also acknowledge that the 95%+ of those people are not the inbred hillbilly redneck stereotypes that many liberals like to perpetuate, and that many of them are reasonable, educated people who happen to like hunting deer, shooting clay pigeons, and keeping their guns securely locked up in a secure location. A person who owns a gun is not some sort of primitive, lesser person who doesn't know better; a person who owns a gun is a person who owns a gun, probably for a very legitimate reason, and is probably smart enough to handle that with appropriate responsibility.
And, all of us - let's stop talking only about gun control as the solution. I absolutely, 100% agree that we will be safer as a nation if we ban sales of assault weapons, if we require all firearms to come issued with an ID number (like cars) to facilitate ease of tracking the source of illicit firearm sales, if we close gun show sale loopholes that make it easy for people to buy mass numbers of firearms and then sell them on the black market to people who would NOT otherwise legally be able to purchase a weapon (a common practice in Illinois, and probably plenty of other states), and if we come up with reasonable restrictions on where and how one can carry a gun in public - contrary to conservative belief, conceal/carry laws are NOT proven to improve public safety. After all, all three states which have seen mass shootings this summer have them. However, we can have a conversation about this, and we as a nation can reach sensible compromise positions that will promote our general welfare - I believe this. I'm willing to talk.
But, we also need to do some soul-searching and have a conversation about why we're in this mess to start with...and it's not only because guns are easily accessible. While easy access to guns is a fueling factor for gun violence, people don't just shoot other people simply because they have a gun and can use it. We need to start talking about why our inner city communities have become jobless hellholes full of drugs, gangs, and guns and devoid of opportunities for employment and any real sense of hope. Why aren't we having that conversation? Why, as a city here in Chicago, are we willing to bend over backwards to create white-collar jobs in the Loop for Motorola and Boeing, but seem utterly incapable of creating community-based jobs initiatives in places like Englewood and Garfield Park? Why are we willing to be complicit in the transformation of Detroit into a post-apocalyptic wasteland in which a person a day is shot to death on average, and where pizza deliveries after dark require an armed guard in the car, if the pizza place is even willing to DO deliveries after dark anymore? We seem to be alright with letting go of all our manufacturing jobs while blaming our unions for daring to ask that employees get fair wages and a good standard of living; have we not sowed the wind and started to reap the whirlwind by stripping places like Detroit and Gary of jobs that allow people some sense of upward mobility, or at the very least decent standards of living? By killing our working middle class, we're killing all of the rest of us...sometimes far too literally.
And, why is it so thoroughly difficult to obtain mental health care? Why do we create a culture that views mental illness with suspicion, as if it's not disease but is something that should just be toughed through? Would you just try to "tough it out" against cancer? No? Then why on earth should people have to "tough it out" against bipolar disorder or schizophrenia? Why do we treat mental illness as if it's not illness, but personal choice? Why do we not have nearly enough programs for people who suffer from mental disorders, or who need support in recovery from addiction? Why do we in the Church do an especially bad job of this? We condemn millions of people to lives of misery and instability, and then seem shocked when a very few them lash out violently against a world that offers them no support or love.
Please, let's have a conversation as a nation about this. Let's stop judging each other, let's stop distorting each other's words, and let's stop jumping to irrational conclusions and resorting to jingoism and mockery. Let's have a legitimate national discourse on why we lead the developed world in violence, and for the love of God, let's please find a way to stop this. Please, let's stop killing each other.
Nicely done. I may steal this and re-post :)
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