SECOND THOUGHTS

I’m shaking my head again.

 

I’m fuming, I’m frustrated.

 

I am so tired of the Second Amendment protecting guns, not people. I’m astounded that classrooms of schoolchildren, churchgoers, mall browsers, grocery shoppers and concert attendees put their lives at risk, doing normal things while killers slaughter them with AR-15s and other firearms. It floors me that walking about while toting a gun is considered an equally normal thing. I’m incensed that LGBTQ carnage didn’t stop with the Pulse massacre in Orlando. I’m deeply troubled that five more people have been gunned down in a gay bar, this time in Colorado Springs. 

 

All of this, it seems, is just the cost of preserving the hallowed Second Amendment. Guns are as sacred as the Bible in the God-blessed United States. It’s pure insanity.

 

Once again, NRA members and NRA-funded politicians will say it’s people, not guns, that are at issue. It’s unchecked psychoses and neuroses. Let’s demonize people with mental health conditions if we must; anything it takes to keep guns at the ready in case of emergency.

 

Drag story hour protesters

“Emergencies” like last month when protesters crowded around a gay bar in Oregon, objecting to a drag queen story hour. Yes, reports are that protesters felt a need to carry guns. Drag queens are scary apparently. This warps and contorts the concept of peaceful protest and assembly. It’s blatant intimidation. I can’t even get my head around the fact someone would take a gun to a protest of any kind. Signs and yelling aren’t enough to make a statement. Gotta pack the gun. This is legal. This is America.

 

There are 20 million AR-15 guns in the United States. That’s just an estimate. There isn’t a gun registry in the U.S. Only six states have any kind of gun registry. So 20 million…ish. How is any kind of screening measure going to get it right in processing that many gun sales? If only 1% slip through the cracks, that means 200,000 of these ultra-destructive weapons are in the wrong hands. Even if 0.1 percent of AR-15s get in the hands of people who weren’t or couldn’t possibly be properly screened, that’s 20,000 guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. How is that acceptable? How does that instill a sense of safety? The answer, to gun advocates is to buy more guns. Fight fire with fire.

 

Love guns, not people.

 

That’s what it comes down to. 

 

When grade one students were wiped out at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut ten years ago, I thought that would finally be the turning point. Americans would come together when their youngest citizens are no longer safe in a public school classroom. 

 

Nope. Alex Jones denied it ever happened. It was a ploy, he said. Actors pretended to be parents of dead kids. How heinous is that? And yet that’s what had to be done. People needed to latch onto conspiracies and fabrications instead of reflecting on how to balance gun rights with public safety and in lieu of grieving the loss of children and supporting the parents whose grief will always be with them.

 

Again, insanity.

 

Worse: depravity. 

 

Banning books seems
a greater issue than
banning assault weapons.

Now lockdown drills are standard procedure in schools. School nurses are a thing of the past and instead we have police or security guards in place. When I was in high school long, long ago, I heard about drug-sniffing dogs checking out student lockers. Talk now is about weapons detectors. If someone is shot in a school, the focus is on faulting security systems—the people, the checkpoints—instead of looking into gun control legislation that might make schools, churches, malls, grocery stores, concert venues and bars safer. The concept of limits on guns for the sake of the greater good is flatly rejected. What could possibly be greater than the Second Amendment?

 

The LGBTQ community must not be complacent when hate is spewed at school board meetings, in state assemblies and in Congress. We must push back—hard—on politicians and candidates who foster fear and hate to fill campaign coffers and get their base to the polls. The old playbook of portraying queers as freaks and perverts must be shredded. Our dignity is at issue but, more immediately, our safety is at stake. There are vulnerable, hateful citizens who hear the rhetoric of “respected” or at least elected officials and see it as a call to arms…and worse.

 

Political activism is embedded in LGBTQ history. It must continue. Take a break from posting gym selfies, get informed and make your voice heard. I don’t want to read about “the next Colorado Springs” and yet I know there will be another tragedy if nothing changes. 

 

Retweet this post if you think it’s worthy. Write your own or tweet your thoughts. Speak up when you hear misinformation. Question people who defend access to assault weapons. We must do all we can to stop the insanity.