Thursday Rant - 12/3/15

How was your week, kids? Yeah, mine too. Happy Holidays from the NRA.

So I guess this is just normal now? It is difficult to even get angry anymore. It's easier to numb yourself, to feel an almost comfortable feeling of bland despair and helplessness at another madman with a gun, but I'm urging you to keep that inner fire alive, guys. Because anger keeps you productive, and what we need is action. I don't need to hear any proclamations of sympathy or prayers, though these things are both important for healing. I need our government to get off its ass and DO something, and I need you guys to shout loudly enough to make them. 

There is a lot of money keeping our lawmakers inactive. Weaponry is big business, and the gun manufacturers and the NRA are very powerful. Rich enough to keep lawmakers silent in the face of overwhelming public support for increased gun control. But we live in a country that values wealth and power above all else, so this shit is going to be hard I need you to write your representatives. Flood their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and phone lines. I need you to sign every goddamned petition you see. Read up on actual gun facts. Read about the 356 (as of this afternoon) mass shootings that have occurred this year. Read up on the logical gun control policies of other countries around the world, particularly Australia, who practically eliminated mass shootings in 1996 after ONE incident. Read up on all of that, and then I need you to do something shitty. I need you to engage with pro-gun activists. That guy you went to high school with who thought the Paris attacks could have been prevented if Donald Trump was guarding the Eiffel Tower with an AK-47? You're going to have to talk to him. I know. I KNOW. It totally sucks. And when you talk to him, you're going to have to not scream/do the Facebook equivalent of screaming. 

I know. 

But I'm going to need for you to do it with facts. Here is a link to facts about gun violence for your convenience: http://www.bradycampaign.org/about-gun-violence

Use that link. Tell them all about the 31 people who die from gun violence every single damn day in this, the self-proclaimed greatest country in the world. 

And after that, ask them if the life of that human being is worth their (highly debatable, but don't say that) right to own and/or carry a firearm. 

Because this isn't really about an opinion on gun control anymore. If you are pro-gun at this point in the game, you straight up value your toys more than you value the safety of others. Maybe they aren't fully aware of that, maybe they say it is for protection or sport or whatever, and they might believe that on the surface. But it cannot be denied that easily accessible guns lead to gun violence. It's a fact. And isn't it worth giving up your rifle in exchange for a safer community? Isn't it worth losing the ability to take your handgun to a grocery store if it prevents just ONE incident of violence? 

Look, maybe it won't do anything. It probably won't, because people don't like to be wrong, and I'm including myself in that. But it might. Or maybe that might shame them enough to just think about it for a fucking second. Just one damn second of contemplation about the value of another human life.

Because I'm sick of this shit. 

To write to you representatives, use this link: http://www.people.com/article/preventing-gun-violence-people-call-to-action-jess-cagle

Stay safe.