For a while now as I see children, teachers, parents, all kinds of people killed by guns held by people who should not have guns day after day after week after week for months and months through years on end. Adults and children are killed with the same traumatizing, mind numbing regularity. To think this is an acceptable price to pay for allowing free ownership and display of guns without any sensible checks and balances is non-sustainable. Eventually and I really want to say it will happen soon we will enforce the first part of the second amendment and call for a well regulated militia. It’s not well regulated atm.
Current law doesn’t encompass the entire Second Amendment as it specifies:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I don’t feel secure or free at the possibility of the next mass shooter’s whim invading my space. What I see is a gun lobby and the NRA and millions of “good people doing nothing” so this evil can prevail. Our children and adults are sacrificed so gun manufacturers, arms dealers and retailers can reap financial prosperity off this senseless, debased carnage. A godless human sacrifice that must come to an end. We need to come out of our collective combat stress reaction and move purposely toward ending gun violence.
Mass shootings has become a solemn and uniquely American ritual.
Some aggrieved person obtains a weapon of war and goes on a hunt to kill people (as many they can in some cases) that may be a place frequented by children, like schools, malls, places of worship and grocery stores.
The shooter then turns the school, church, temple, mosque or shopping area into a killing field that destroys people’s bodies until they are unrecognizable. Pools of blood flow across the floors. Bits of blood, bone and flesh are blown across rooms covering the area in all three dimensions.
First responders appear in this order, police, EMT’s then trauma centers.
The media descends upon the latest killing field trying to listen to anyone willing to talk about what up till then, was unthinkable for them.
First responders start to report what they see and hear in a grotesque, macabre death watch vs. life watch. I will never forget the trauma surgeons after MSD unconsciously rocking back and forth attempting to self-sooth as they reported their inability to repair a small teen’s body. Their despair was palpable, my heart broke watching them.
The day after, the secondary responders, which I will identify for my purposes here, as politicians, lobbyists, media personalities, influencers and pundits going into talking point mode.
We are offered the thoughts and prayers from our legislators and government officials as they solemnly state the deaths of the day are the price to pay for allowing every and anyone access to assault weapons. The NRA will also issue a tone deaf statement of some sort of platitude.
We hear:
It’s too soon to contemplate what can be done. We have to allow time for people to grieve and grapple with this latest loss of life.
Newsers introduce us to the people whose last moments of life with needlessly terrifying prior to their obliteration. Here are their pictures. The talking head sums up each person pictured in 1 paragraph. Isn’t this so sad? (Yeah, I guess I have to admit at this point, I am angry and blogging while angry.)
Then, the legislature class states “there’s nothing to be done”, the Second Amendment is absolute…. (which if you read that amendment again, there is room to well regulate the every person’s militia we find ourselves living with and dying from).
The newsers turn into pretzels trying to both sider the mass shooting issue posing gun rights vs. senseless death. How they can justify senseless death is senseless, but there they are doing it again and again.
Next up, the pro-gun ownership advocates do a complete 180 and we hear:
Oh, but not everyone should have a gun!
People with mental illness shouldn’t have guns!
People with felony convictions shouldn’t have guns!
Domestic abusers and stalkers shouldn’t have guns!
People with homicidal ideation shouldn’t be able to get a gun! (I submit in all seriousness, the concept, that by definition, a person who purchases a mass caaualty weapon of war (sanitized as an assault gun) has a high likelihood of harboring homicidal ideation. That statement should have enough disclaimers for just about anybody, except those with homicidal ideation. But, I digress.)
Our thoughts collide taking in the details of this latest mass shooting only to see another round of politicians doing another 180 regarding funding adequate mental health services —
We can’t afford more spending (on anything)!
Well, not all stalkers and abusers are the same — these red flag laws are a slippery slope eroding the second amendment.
Well, not all mental illness should disqualify gun ownership. Mild neurosis is ok. That’s another slippery slope.
Meanwhile enough time has passed and there’s another shooter at a birthday party, or a concert or in a night club and we see the cycle run through again. Same story, different place, different shooter, but all will agree, “They should never have been able to get a gun”. (JEEBERS! Am I the only person in America who sees this BS for what it is? I think not.)
All this happening over and over for days, weeks, months and years while the “good people” sit and watch our TV’s, read our news and say
NOTHING!
This evil gun worship prevails because not enough good people are saying anything that will make people change their approach to gun violence.
This needless, senseless human sacrifice prevails.
We live in a society that revels appropriate human sacrifice on the battlefields of our county. We live in a society that seems to worship the Second Amendment as if it were scripture. We live in a society that allows nominal human sacrifice for nominal reasons and this is a travesty.
Unfortunately, this human sacrifice has gone from declared wars to every day life in all our venues. Everywhere we go, worship, exercise, entertain ourselves is now a battle field and potential killing field. Why do we tolerate this in the land of the free? When will our nation come to realize our politicians do not work for us? They work for their donors. When do we as a nation realize no one if free when anyone can lose their temper and shoot up where ever we are at the moment they lose their self control with a mass casualty weapon of war? At some point the good people that have said nothing, need to say,
“If you can’t see any possible legislative solution to reduce and or end senseless gun violence you can’t have my vote”.
What I have been seeing for some time is that the worship of the evil deity Moloch has resurged and his worshippers are prolific but different from ancient times. In the Hebrew Bible [Old Testament], Moloch is presented as a deity who had people sacrifice their children for financial prosperity. The transaction was to place the the first born baby in the arms or in the abdominal hole of a metal statue of Moloch and set a fire. The baby no doubt died and then Mom & Dad were then supposed to be blessed for their sacrifice with personal prosperity for the rest of their life. Mosaic law expressly forbade the Jews to do what was done in Egypt or in Canaan for Moloch/Molech/Molek (plus about another 5-6 spellings of his name). Christianity and Islam follows Jewish law regarding Moloch — no child sacrifice. BTW, Moloch’s consort was Astarte/Ashtoreth who has quite a story of her own regarding ritual prostitution — but that’s another diary for another day.
I am not saying any parent of a child who died of a GSW in recent memory worships moloch and or willingly allowed their child to be sacrificed to moloch. The worship of moloch has been perverted (as if it weren’t perverted enough in it’s original form). It isn’t the parents who prosper in the death of their child. It is their proxy. The weapon of war lobbyist, the gun manufacturer, gun seller and the politician who takes their bounty that are today’s worshiper of moloch. In their view, the children’s deaths are collateral damage. Something that shouldn’t be contemplated too deeply so they can pursue their earthly treasures. May they be damned.
Maybe I have the wrong god here. Maybe the lobbyist, the gun manufacturer, gun seller and the politician who takes their bounty is actually serving mammon, another ancient god. According to Solomon, “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Sound like anybody you know of today? A prominent billionaire or 10? 20? The gun lobby? The NRA? Any politician you know? or know of? Any talking head you see on tv? Ever heard money talks, bs walks? I’m willing to bet Clarence Thomas knows this phrase quite well. He serves his master well (as have any other judge who strikes down common sense gun safety laws) to our detriment and death.
The explanation for the lack of accountability of gun ownership is an exercise in cognitive dissonance. What would happen if strict liability was placed on gun ownership, gun storage, gun use and gun registration? Less death most certainly. A rearrangement of wealth? Yes, the money would flow from guns to insurance (another racket for another diary on another day). Many more deaths would be prevented if we went back to licensing gun operation. You have to have a driver’s license and car insurance. It makes sense to require a gun usage/operator’s license segmented by the type of firearm (side arm, pistol, semi-automatic, rifle, mass casualty, weapon of war, assault rifle and so on — the more deadly the weapon, the higher the requirements for operation and ownership should be). A gun operator’s license doesn’t have to be directly connected to gun ownership. I had a driver’s license, but drove a car lent to me by my parents for years. I don’t have a license to drive an 18-wheeler and I don’t have a chauffer's license. Those take greater knowledge and greater insurance.
It is time for the good people to step up and say something to policy makers, legislatures, tv personalities:
If you can’t offer up a solution to at least reduce gun violence in the U.S. I will find someone else who will and I will support them and not you.