152 gunshots.
School children and staff in a Nashville, Tennessee heard 152 gunshots the day 3 adults and 3 nine-year-old children were slaughtered on March 27, 2023.
Sounds they’ll hear forever.
The leading cause of deaths among children and teenagers is no longer accidents. It’s gun violence. If it were poison, a dangerous website, pills someone had altered, faulty toys, flammable clothes, pornographic content … it would have been dealt with immediately.
We are not protecting our children; we are sacrificing them to those who demand gun rights at all costs.
Many claim armed police officers in schools are the answer.
But even when two heroic officers did run towards the shooting that day in Nashville, clearly saving countless lives, six were still lost.
There are 115,000 private and public schools.
There are over 700,000 officers in America today. It would take millions to protect our schools from random shootings. But what about malls, bars, parks, grocery stores, and outdoor events?
Even though officers were on the scene within three minutes in Uvalde, Texas, it took 400 scared-to-death, heavily armed and well outfitted officers -1 hour and 14 minutes before they attempted to stop the gunman. Even law enforcement isn’t prepared to deal with this weapon of mass destruction.
Police officers are not the answer.
Who needs an AR-15 that can shoot 60 rounds a minute? It was designed to inflict maximum damage to bones and organs because it breaks apart inside the body, causing even more devastation. Read this article, with a visual representation from the Washington Post of how the weapon destroys people (watch the video via the highlighted Twitter posts, as the full article from WP is only available through subscription). The weapon’s entire purpose is to shred and destroy as many people as possible, in seconds. Hearing those words is nothing compared to watching how truly devastating the damage can be.
There have been more than 130 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, averaging more than one a day, according to the Gun Violence Archive. But these figures don’t include shootings that are less than the “mass” definition of four or more deaths.
When the assault weapon ban was finally enacted in 1994, it had an expiration date. Ten years. During that time the risk of mass shootings dropped by 70%. The average number of yearly deaths attributed to mass shootings was 25, compared with 5.3 during the 10-year ban. When waiting periods were enacted it reduced gun deaths by 17%. Universal background checks reduced homicide rates by 11%.
Thoughts and prayers have never been enough.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, nominated by Richard Nixon, served from 1969 until 1986. In 1991, 5 years after he retired, he gave this interview,
“If I were writing the Bill of Rights now there wouldn’t be any such thing as the 2nd amendment. This has been the greatest fraud perpetrated against the American people by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The Second Amendment states ‘A well-regulated militia being necessary for the defense of the state and people’s right to bear arms.’ If the militia, which is the state army needed to be well regulated why wouldn’t any one else be regulated in the use of arms the way an automobile is regulated?”
Our babies are dying.
Our babies go to school scared. Taught ineffective methods to keep them from being riddles with bullets.
We enact laws to protect them from:
- Drowning in pools by forcing homeowners to build a fence.
- Dying in car accidents by demanding they wear seat belts, use car seats and ensuring manufacturers build safer vehicles.
- Getting into medication bottles or dangerous substances by creating special tops.
- Toys, clothing and products that could cause them harm.
- Gaining access to alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana.
- Movies and shows that present inappropriate topics.
The overwhelming majority of Americans, Americans from any political viewpoint, believe in common sense fixes such as background checks, red flag laws, waiting periods, banning bump devices and yes, assault rifles.
The extreme fringe and gun industry do not. They are holding the rest of us hostage.
And it keeps getting worse. The Supreme Court has been asked to step in and overturn a recent appeals court decision that invalidated an almost 30-year-old Federal law prohibiting anyone subject to a restraining order due to domestic violence from owning guns. There are more than one million acts of domestic violence in the U.S. annually and the presence of a gun in the house increases the risk of homicide sixfold! Will facts matter to the court? Or the women and children whose lives these acts by and large involve?
Will our judicial and legislative systems keep siding with gun rights and not the victims, as they seem to be by advocating or allowing:
- Arming domestic abusers
- Hate killings
- School shootings
- Mass murders
Anyone to carry a weapon at anytime, anywhere, with no checks and balances, as in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee- which just proposed expanding their already at-will handgun carry law to include all firearms.
Why do we put guns above the right to live without fear of being massacred outside our homes? That was never the intent of our forefathers, or the Second Amendment.
When will we finally go beyond just our thoughts and prayers?
Contact your senators (follow the links to contact Arizona senators, Kristen Sinema and Mark Kelly). Get in the loop with Moms Demand Action, and Everytown for Gun Safety, grassroots movements of Americans fighting for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence. It isn’t about taking away people’s rights, but setting smart, proven guidelines that help prevent gun violence.
-https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101274322/uvalde-ar-15-style-rifle-history-shooter-mass-shooting
-https://rollcall.com/2023/03/20/doj-asks-supreme-court-to-review-domestic-violence-gun-ruling/
-https://www.science.org/content/article/gun-waiting-periods-could-save-hundreds-lives-year-study-says
-https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
-https://debatepolitics.com/threads/former-chief-justice-warren-berger-on-the-2nd-amendment.365127/?amp=1#/account/dismiss-notice?notice_id=20
-Https://www.npr.org/2022/06/211106372103/uvalde-elementary-school-shooting
-https://www.npr.org/2023/04/03/1167803634/the-nashville-school-shooter-planned-the-attack-for-months-police-say
-Https://www.news-press.com/story/news local/2023