Victims of Gun Violence

Like a battlefield, their corpses are strewn across the landscape, in elementary and high school classrooms, in nightclubs, at concert events, in workplaces, in churches, in restaurants, in homes – victims of gun violence, testimony that America is no longer safe because the nation is awash in guns that seemingly anyone can get and the government refuses to address the issue.

The riddled bodies of children and adults are not the only victims of gun violence. The men and women who kill with guns are also victims. They are permitted to buy as many as they need with as much ammo as they need without anyone questioning them. The gun sellers won’t question them; the law won’t question them until they commit a crime with a gun. No matter what the crime, the gun is the go-to tool of choice.

The law-abiding gun owners are victims, too. Many of them believe the falsehoods about the intent of the Second Amendment or the lie that liberals want to take away their guns. They just want to enjoy the peaceful purpose of hunting, target practice and collecting, but they are caught in the crossfire. They see the carnage, but can’t listen without anger to an explanation of what meaningful gun-control means. They believe that always carrying a gun will protect them. Yet, most people live an entire life without ever needing a gun for protection.

Every American is a victim because politics and special interests have set the nation on a course of more guns and more deaths. Presidents and Congress, governors and state legislators refuse to consider meaningful gun control because to do nothing is safer for them politically. They have forgotten their role in a democracy where majority rules, and poll after poll shows a majority of Americans want meaningful gun control.

Moderation in everything; more of anything multiplies a problem. Why must teachers bear the burden of carrying a gun to class to protect their students. Yet, the National Rifle Association, the Gun Owners of America, gun makers, advocates of so-called gun rights and their supporters in the White House, Congress, governor’s mansions, state legislatures, county courthouses and city halls will tell you more guns are needed to stop gun violence.

More guns to stop gun violence is like pouring gasoline on a fire; like treating heroin addiction with more heroin; like giving more poison to the poisoned; like serving more alcohol to the alcoholic. More guns mean more death.   

Yet, the NRA and the politicians it supports say that is the answer. They say more guns are needed in the classrooms, in the night clubs, at public events, in workplaces, in churches, in restaurants, in homes, and concealed in the pockets of “good guys with a gun.” You’re only a ‘good guy’ until you start killing people with your gun. Just ask the student survivors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 of their classmates, teachers and coaches were killed within minutes with an AR-15 assault-style rifle.

Back in 1996, Gun makers, with help from their lobbying arm, the NRA, got Congress to halt government research into the harm decades of rampant gun violence has caused our nation, our sense of well-being, our children’s mental health. Such research could help with discussing and adopting meaningful gun control, but we can’t know; the gun makers don’t want us to know.

However, we do know what guns and gun violence are doing to our nation’s civility.

It’s another victim.