It is Monday, May 30, Memorial Day… the day we pause and reflect, a time for us to recognize those who have given so much for the freedom and the country we live in today. Normally, we think about soldiers, and front-line folks that fought in wars… people like a 3x great grandfather of mine that died in Murfreesboro, Tennessee during the civil war. His name was George Yenne, and died at the age of 43, leaving a wife and nine children.
These days, I know we’re supposed to mourn our war dead, but it seems that there are other violent deaths that need to be in the forefront of today’s dialogue. We keep losing children to gun violence.
Right now, in the United States, the leading cause of death for children and teens is gun violence.
A lot of people in industry and in the government don’t want to talk about it.
I saw a post from the NRA national convention, a gentleman stepping to the microphone, and his talk was on the misinformation being spread about NRA grand poobah Wayne LaPierre. The thing is, it was sarcasm, addressing Mr. LaPierre’s tough stand on gun control, and stating that no one is thinking harder or praying harder than Wayne LaPieere, a side-eye sneer at the NRA’s perpetual post massacre mantra of “thoughts and prayers” for the dead.
The NRA loves massacres. America’s gun manufacturers make a lot of money following an event like this because they get to capitalize on the fear of the unknown, and the fear that our politicians will finally take some sort of action to prevent this from happening again.
Then they take a portion of those profits and drop them right into campaign finances for the politicians that will vote their way every time.
Nothing is going to change. Maybe someday, we’ll hit some magic number of dead kids. But until the politicians that are owned by the NRA feel this in a deep, personal way, they won’t do anything. Expect the status quo. Nothing changed after all of the other shootings, don’t expect anything now.
So, all of you politicians under control of the gun lobby – what’s the magic number? Is is 100? Is it a 1000? I’m guessing that the real number is 1… an unspeakable number 1. Someday that might happen, but until that day, our kids are nothing more than silhouettes on the range.
I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.
Peace y’all.
