Don’t Call School Safety and Mental Health Care — Gun Control

NRA owns our Republican senators. What a shame. Because of that, we aren’t making one iota of progress with gun control. We are going to get better school security, we are even going to make some progress with mental health interventions, but we are NOT going to get gun control.

Mitch McConnell and the Republican congress have been successful at blocking meaningful legislation since 2008 (how old was he seriously?) The entire focus at that time was making sure that Barack Obama was unable to fulfill campaign promises as the Republican legislative bodies were blocking all democratic efforts.

This has been the thrill of the Republican party: block anything that is Democratic. The republicans can’t make it with “good works” and “power for the people” which is alright with them. They make their success a financial success. And wow, the republicans have made so much money, you wonder why they don’t retire?

This retirement question is huge for me. Mitch McConnell is 80! I’m 63 and I’m exhausted. It’s true that I haven’t lived rich white man privilege, but still, I’m exhausted. How does anyone who is 80 years old work full time? Am I ageist for saying this? Do I feel that way about Nancy Pelosi? Why yes, yes I do! Term Limits would be great, or even (sigh), mandatory retirement.

To the Madness…

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has given me “young people hope”. Bernie Sanders knows lots and lots of young people who can do these jobs well and who will not take money to (do their jobs) legislate.

Why does our country continue this madness? Gun manufacturers, use the NRA to protect their ability to sell the AR-15. Why is this even a thing? Before the assault weapons ban went into effect in ’94, there were about 400,000 AR-15-style rifles in America. Today, there are 20 million. They began to be used more in mass shootings.

Problem Definition

Essentially ~

We know that guns are a problem for our society. We know that guns are often used to slaughter human beings.

We know that: Automatic weapons or semiautomatic weapons are inefficient for use in hunting. These rifles are still used in hunting, but not usually for hunting an animal that can be eaten. In other words, they are used for hunting nuisance animals.

In no case is the semiautomatic weapon necessary to the American way of life.

Yet the AR15 is ubiquitous and cheap, as easy to get as a hunting license. How is that possible? Are there really 20 million people using an AR15? That is how many AR15s there are in America.

We wonder, is there a way that Americans can change this? Our legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate are not willing to engage in any form of gun control. Our current representatives refuse to do what must be done.

Republicans continue to block Democrats and since the NRA is a Republican supporter, gun control, which is supported by Democrats, does not even go to a vote. Instead, we talk about the security of our schools, the lack of mental health care, we talk about everything except the guns. It’s as if guns are not relevant to the discussion.

Yet guns are at the center of the discussion.

How is it possible that people do not see how guns are ruining the lives of our youth? The number of guns in America is well above any other country in the world; and we have the highest rate of deaths from guns. Among developed economies, no others have nearly as many violent firearm deaths as the US.

When people say, people kill people, guns don’t kill people, I want to scream! I’d also like to point out that in America, Guns = Death. The statistics don’t lie about that. We are the country that is doing a wrong thing. That’s not something that America wants to be: we don’t like being wrong.