To the victims of the next school shooting
To the victims of the next school shooting
I wish our country valued your young lives enough to try to save them, but it doesn't. That won't change in my lifetime, or, more crucially, in yours.
In 2007, after the Virginia Tech shooting, I wrote, in Slate:
Are we sorry that 32 people, most of them no older than 22, were killed? Of course. But we aren’t so sorry that we intend to do anything to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. We value the lives of Mary Read, Ryan Clark, Leslie Sherman, and all the rest, but we value more their killer Cho Seung Hui’s untrammeled right to purchase not only a Glock 19 and a Walther P22, but also the ammunition clips that, according to the April 18 Washington Post, would have been impossible to obtain legally had Congress not allowed President Clinton’s assault-weapon ban to expire three years ago.
In 2012, after the shooting in a Colorado movie theater, I wrote, in the New Republic:
We’re sorry that 12 people had to die in Aurora, Colo. But we aren’t sorry enough to lift a finger to prevent it from happening again.
Now it’s 2022 and, writing again in the New Republic, I addressed this bitter message directly to the children who are alive now, somewhere, but will be killed in the next school shooting. Which probably is no more than a month or two away.
Let me first say how sorry I am for your untimely future death. Were I able to prevent your slaughter by an emotionally disturbed young male with a history of rejection, I would. But I can’t…. When that emotionally disturbed young male arrives at your school with a gun, you’ll just have to take one for the team.
You can read that latest piece here.
Also this week, I wrote about Biden, China, and trade. You can read that here.
Man, that's dark... But yeah, I don't know how anything possibly changes as long as the Senate and the Supreme Court exist in their current form. I think people saying we need to repeal the Second Amendment entirely are being excessive -- we just need to actually pass a federal law that says that the introductory clause about a well-organized militia is actually meaningful, and goes on to lay out standards for what that militia would look like (sweeping in National Guard membership, and allowing states to establish their own safety training and psych eval program as long as it meets the common standard). But quite likely the current court would strike that down, given that the conservatives invented a personal right to a gun in Heller, completely ignoring the content of the earlier Miller case, and now with their six-three majority it's unimaginable they'd back down on this issue. Perhaps if it's ever _their_ kids in the line of fire, they'll suddenly develop a conscience, the same way we've seen so many conservative politicians suddenly discover the importance of gay rights when it was their own kids who wanted to get gay-married. (I am being flip, but only because it's better than being furious or miserable.)
https://slate.com/human-interest/2008/06/the-supreme-court-breakfast-table-was-it-ever-miller-time.html