I rarely break protocol once a week, but earlier this week, like you, I was horrified to read yet another headline about yet another massacre armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that is still destroying lives and families. Another round of unnecessary hunting. A 6-year-old boy lost his mother, father and 3-year-old brother. A young mother is currently lying unconscious in a hospital bed. When she wakes up, she learns that her 8-year-old and 11-year-old daughter have been killed.
I am sick of these stupid titles. I feel helpless every time this happens. I’m sick of how quickly politicians move to gaslight what, so far, can only be described as a national epidemic of chronic grief.
Because that’s exactly what it is – we’re in constant mourning. Unlike ordinary grief, we never Respite from our grief. rather,
- We have to endure 208 mass shootings In less than half a year.
- We are horrified by this 15,038 people killed In less than half a year.
- We are being conditioned normalize unconsciousness 96 infanticide In less than half a year.
So, why is the United States so embarrassingly and fatally obsessed with guns?
I didn’t have to look far to find the answer:
On May 8, 2023, Laura Ingraham told her 3.3 million viewers Following:
“Their anti-Second Amendment crusade was now and always about raw power. Disarming the people is essential to maintaining power in any country, no matter how tyrannical the leadership.
Given everything we’ve learned about Tucker Carlson, et al. Thanks to the good people at Dominion (who, in my opinion, should be awarded the Nobel Prize), it’s entirely possible that Ingraham doesn’t believe his own BS, but still gets paid a lot to spread it. For him and many others, it’s just a game, and according to him, the “Democrats” aren’t playing by the rules. Rather, “Democrats” are using mass shootings as a way to distract people from what they really care about: the economy.
“But why do Democrats want to talk about guns? Anything, anything is on everyone’s mind to avoid this issue.”
It’s sickening how effectively Fox News has deployed the strawman playbook to trick its viewers into believing their fight is noble; That a right is based on the assumption that the death of 8 people including 3 children is a mere anger, worth protecting; That the “Democrats” are trying to disarm America as part of a top-secret, long-game conspiracy that will result in…what? Obama’s crown as king? A military coup? I’ve never actually talked to a single Democrat who supports a total ban on all guns. This so-called “anti-Second Amendment crusade” does not exist.
What I find so funny, of course, is that the most ardent gun-supporters often can’t tell you what it says:
“A well-regulated militia, necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Notably:
- SA doesn’t even mention the word “gun”. SA guarantees the right to bear “arms”, a big word, but then provides no definition. In plain English, “weapon” refers to a weapon and does not necessarily limit itself to guns. Why not read SA to guarantee the right to carry missile launchers? Grenade? Biological weapons? Because, but for our country’s obsessive fixation with “guns”, we all agree that SA was never intended to guarantee the right to asylum. Any and all weapons and thus should be subject to limitations.
- SA clearly refers to “people’s rights”, which comes on the heels of “free states”. At best, the SA is ambiguous as to whether it is meant as a collective right as opposed to an individual right. Contrast this amendment with the Fourth Amendment, which expressly states that the right is to protect the individual: “[t]Right to security of people Their persons, houses, papers and effectsAgainst unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be infringed…” (U.S. Const. at 4th Am.) (Emphasis added.)
- The SA clearly prioritizes the right to bear arms over the need for a “well-regulated militia”. It follows that, which should change or disappear entirely, the right should also, change or disappear entirely. Overturning a constitutional amendment is difficult but not impossible. In fact, we’ve done it before (the 21st Amendment was ratified to repeal the 18th Amendment-Prohibition). That there is a mechanism for repealing a previous amendment proves what any rational person would agree (again, outside the context of our obsession with guns): Some amendments will not Must stand the test of time and should either be revised or simply discarded.
- Even the Republican-led Supreme Court no longer pretends that the need for a “well-regulated militia” can justify over 200 mass shootings. inside Heller (2022), SCOTUS essentially deleted the first half of SA’s text and grafted on a new constitutional right—“self-defense”—as a means of preserving a right that might otherwise become obsolete.
The Ingrahams of the world who are hitting the pause button this week are lambasting how to reduce the brutal costs of our current interpretation of the Second Amendment. But, here’s the truth: only a soulless person would suggest that our politicians should care about anything. other Compared to the 208th mass shooting this year.
While stretching at the gym yesterday, on a morning where millions are discovering that another shooting in Texas has left 8 dead, including a 3-year-old child, my husband, Anthony, overheard two men chit-chatting about them. “Remington”-pump action shotgun. Both complained about all the silly hoops they had to jump through to keep their guns, as they reasoned, “The police won’t protect us, anyway.” Another psycho armed with two guns went on a rampage at an outlet mall—not to mention something that wouldn’t have happened if the killer had found out. very difficult to acquire his weapons of mass destruction.
This kind of profanity represents the state of our country for better or worse. A devastating lack of empathy and unwillingness to confront our country’s complicity in the deaths of its own people. We have millions who are being held back At gunpoint Those who feel that there is nothing inhumane about the arms control that has been used Kills about 80 people every day. I saw a post by the ever-optimistic and impossibly eloquent Corey Booker, who cautioned us against giving in to despair, the inevitable ennui filling the hole left by compulsive reminders of our lack of agency. “We can’t stop talking about this,” he said, touching on a truth so uncomfortable, I literally began to cringe:
I’m sick of talking about this.
Slowly, but surely, grief will destroy our hope. We are abandoning the idea that our safety, our children, and our sanity should be sacrificed on the altar of an amendment conceived by a handful of men who died hundreds of years ago—men who, by constitution, could not possibly represent interests when “we of people”, much less so today.
So, yes, in one sense, Ms. Ingraham is right. The gun control issue is, at bottom, a problem power. “We the people” has morphed into “What’s in it for me?” A radicalized personality that occurs when empathy dissipates against a perceived threat to power—in some cases a power they never had, and in other cases, a power they never deserved. We operate in a digital world that profits from our fear, risking every penny. Laura Ingraham and her ilk have made a fortune for themselves and their employers by creating a political bogeyman, convincing millions of Americans that any The right to bear arms threatens their autonomy. Is it any wonder that many of them readily traded their sympathy for bullets? Guns for their humanity?
But nothing is a greater threat to power than fraud. And if we’ve learned anything in the past few weeks with the downfall of Tucker Carlson, it’s that those who wield enormous influence over our nation’s conscience seem to have zero compunction about outright lying to Americans.
And we humans cannot survive outside the bounds of truth.
And so, as sick as you may be of talking about this…
I urge you all to continue that work.
– Joan
