We’ve Tried God. Why Don’t We Try Government to Stop Mass Shootings?

By voting Republican, Americans are electing to have more gun violence

Well, here we are again doing the NRA Republican Death Dance. This time an 18-year-old gunman wearing body armor and carrying an assault rifle slaughtered at least 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

While the vast majority of Americans want reasonable gun control, any efforts to stop the madness and mayhem will likely be obstructed by the NRA and their rented Republican puppets. Every single time this happens there is a predictable well-worn script.   

First, we are offered unsolicited outpourings of thoughts and prayers. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz provided his blessings on Twitter, writing, “Heidi & I are fervently lifting up in prayer the children and families in the horrific shooting in Uvalde.” Thanks, Ted, I’m sure that will help, like it always does. But the tragic truth is these dead children won’t be “lifted up”, they will be lowered six feet down into their graves.

The only thing less impressive than Ted Cruz’s useless prayers are his empty thoughts. However, Cancun Cruz’s pockets certainly aren’t empty. He was the number one recipient of campaign cash from the National Rifle Association. His prayers for money certainly came true, with the senator receiving more than $300,000 in campaign donations from gun lobbyists during his last campaign in 2018, $80,000 more than the number two recipient.

Ironically, Cruz, Texas’ other Senator, John Cornyn, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are scheduled to speak Friday at the National Rifle Association’s 2022 annual meeting in Houston. Great timing for an NRA speech. Aren’t we lucky? Think of all the prayers we are going to receive at the convention.   

Hey, evangelicals, we’ve been more than fair. The Columbine school shooting occurred in 1999, with 12 students murdered. You stepped up and offered your lovely thoughts and prayers. It’s 2022 and the number of school shootings are increasing. You certainly can’t say we didn’t give your method a chance. Like an Internet meme wisely put it: “For Republicans, life begins at conception and ends in a school shooting.”

Maybe, it’s time for a new approach? We’ve tried God, and this doesn’t seem to be his particular issue. Perhaps it’s time to bench God and give our second string, the government, a chance to pass legislation? In fact, a few hours after the Uvalde shooting, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer cleared the way to force votes that would strengthen background checks. Here’s our chance to try something new – gun control -- that seems to work everywhere else in the world. To quote a satirical headline in The Onion, “‘No Way to Prevent This’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

Sen. Cruz, you’re not a preacher? You were hired as a lawmaker. So, why don’t you drop the televangelist act, support Sen Schumer’s efforts and pass some laws?  

The next step in the NRA Republican Death Dance is the part where locals proclaim, “I can’t believe it happened here.” Why is anyone still surprised, we live in America? If it can happen in Aurora, Paducah, Columbine, Newtown, Parkland, Red Lake and all the other tranquil, leafy suburbs, then why not Uvalde? Why not in your backyard?

It’s time to stop being stunned or shocked, because these massacres are frequent and happen at any time, any place, anywhere. Mass shootings in America are as predictable as Christmas in December. The first step to stopping the carnage is admitting we have a problem, and no one is safe.  

The NRA Republican Death Dance continues with pious proclamations by Americans who claim, “This isn’t who we are.” That reminds me of a friend whose boyfriend walked in on him having sex with another dude. Caught red-handed, the cheating boyfriend looks up and declares, “This isn’t me.” Without skipping a beat, his crestfallen partner replies, “Well, if it’s not you, your impersonator sure got lucky.”

At this moment in time, wanton gun violence and the senseless slaughter of school children defines America. We are a people who chronically elect politicians who pose with machine guns and mindlessly enable bloodshed to continue. Do you want to know exactly who we are?

·      We are a country where “gun deaths reached the highest number ever recorded in 2020, surging by 35 percent,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

·      We are a country that has 331 million people, yet an astounding 400 million firearms, according to a 2018 survey conducted by the nonpartisan Small Arms Survey.

·      We are a country where more Americans have died from gunshots in the last 50 years than in all of the wars in American history. Since 1968, more than 1.5 million Americans have died in gun-related incidents, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By comparison, approximately 1.2 million service members have been killed in every war in U.S. history.

·      We are a country that peddles the fiction that we need guns for hunting. But for more than a decade, semiautomatic handguns outsell rifles. So, yes, we are hunting, but for people. Or we are trying to protect ourselves from the people we believe might be hunting us. What a wonderful society we’ve created. Do you feel safer with the proliferation of guns ?  

·      We are a country that despite the epidemic of gun violence, keeps producing more guns. Annual domestic gun production increased from 3.9 million in 2000 to 11.3 million in 2020, according to a report released this month by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

·      We are a country controlled by politicians that claim to be pro-life yet cower in the face of protecting the lives of children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the rate of gun deaths of children 14 and younger rose by roughly 50 percent from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020. To paraphrase the late comedian George Carlin, “The Republican Party loves you if you’re pre-born, but if you make it to pre-school you’re fucked.”

·      We are a country that elects people like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. He signed a law in 2021 that ended the requirement for Texans to obtain a license to carry handguns. This permitted basically anyone over the age of 21 to carry a pistol. How’s that working out for you Texas? Where was your fictional “good guy with a gun” to save the lives of these child victims in Uvalde?  

The final step in the NRA Republican Death Dance is to piously proclaim, “now isn’t the time to politicize tragedy.” Well, choosing to do nothing in the face of violence is the epitome of politicization. It’s a choice to accept a status quo that keeps adding statistics and piling up dead bodies, while proclaiming to be pro-life.

Sadly, much of our gun culture is tied to white supremacy and we saw this aspect of our gun insanity play out in Buffalo. Across the country, paranoid, right wing nutcases and militias are stockpiling weapons of war for an imaginary race war that they keep trying to instigate. We saw these gun-toting, fake patriot whackos at state houses protesting against COVID restrictions and at rallies protesting Donald Trump’s defeat.   

There is also the uniquely American delusion shared by too many men that they are Rambo. We might be 350 pounds eating potato chips while watching reality TV in a Lazy Boy. Yet, in our vivid imagination we are special forces, like Chuck Norris or Clint Eastwood. “Go ahead, make my day!”

The truth, however, is that the vast majority of the time, an active shooter has the upper hand because of the element of surprise. If presidents like Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy can be shot, despite the protection of the Secret Service, what realistic chance do you have against an ambush by a crazed shooter in body armor with an AR-15?    

Sadly, this merry-go-round of madness will continue unobstructed, unrestrained and unabated until America admits, “this is precisely who we are”, but “this isn’t who we want to be. We are better than this.” But with pro-NRA Republicans seeming to have an edge in the midterms, our nation is literally electing to have more mass shootings.

I’ll end with the most poignant meme I read on the Texas school shooting: “Let’s take a moment to honor the sacrifice of our brave schoolchildren, who lay down their lives to protect our right to bear arms.”