The Gun Talk
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” — Old Chinese Proverb
“This is a time for people to grieve, to mourn, and to heal. This is not a time for political discussions or public policy debates,” said the NRA after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.
“At this time, anything other than prayers for the victims and their families would be inappropriate,” said the NRA after the January 8, 2011 shooting spree that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
“We believe that now is the time for families to grieve and for the community to heal. There will be an appropriate time down the road to engage in political and policy discussions,” said the NRA after the July 20, 2012, massacre at an Aurora, Colorado theater that left 12 dead and 58 wounded.
“ Offer a prayer & temper your desire for politics while the facts come in,” said NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch after last night’s shooting in Las Vegas.
It’s a recurring theme after mass shootings: “Let’s use this time to grieve and mourn. Now isn’t the time to discuss these things. That time will come later.” I disagree. Now is the perfect time to talk about guns. Now is the only time to talk about guns. I’m tired of punting on these issues while elementary schools and universities and churches and movie theaters and concert venues are targets of mass shootings. If we don’t talk about this, another elementary school will be attacked. If we don’t talk about this, another movie theater or concert venue will be attacked. If we don’t talk about this, another church will be attacked. How many more acts of mass violence do we need to see before we do something about them? How many movie theaters, elementary schools, black churches, or gay nightclubs need to suffer through these things before people start to admit that we have a problem?
These mass shootings are not “unspeakable tragedies.” They are not displays of “unimaginable horror.” The frequency with which they happen in this country is alarming at best and downright terrifying at worst. When will we admit that we live in the most dangerous industrialized nation in the world? The great danger facing our society isn’t homosexuality, it’s ammosexuality; it’s our country’s bizarre reverence for guns.
We’re a nation of children, solving problems by killing each other and then refusing to admit that there’s anything wrong. Sure, we’ll say “my condolences” and we’ll send our thoughts and prayers like we give a shit, but then we’ll keep acting like it’s perfectly fine to have twelve guns “because that’s what God intended for this country (see Matthew 17:76).” When are we going to admit that our obsession with guns and bullets and violence is fucking absurd? We have a problem in this country and we can’t make progress on fixing that problem while people steadfastly refuse to admit we even have one.
Do you really want to help the victims of shootings and prevent them from happening? How about let’s actually do something about their causes. Thoughts and prayers for the rest of us are all well and good but do nothing to prevent these things from happening in the future and do little to help those in the hospital. How about we start by talking about the ridiculous gun culture we have in this country? How about we start by talking about any of the underlying reasons that these things happen in the first place? How about we tackle this problem at the source, instead of applying prayer bandaids and hoping they’ll go away?
Let’s treat every person that wants to buy a gun the way we treat every young woman who goes to get an abortion. Let’s treat every person that wants to buy a gun the way we treat every transwoman who wants to use the right bathroom. Let’s stop pretending that wedding cakes for gay couples are more important than the lives of innocent people lost every day because we can’t act like adults for ten fucking seconds and talk about this shit.
“The best time to talk about guns was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. — Old Chinese Proverb” — Dennis Langley
