Hey guys, I know I blog about selfies and mascara and engagements and puppies, but I have to change tunes for a moment to address something that has been consuming my mind all week (and in the past), as I’m sure it has with a lot of you. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled comedic fluff next week. Thanks for reading.
We were all left stunned and saddened with the shooting of Alison Parker and Adam Ward on August 26. It still hurts my heart to think about those two young people with so much life left to live gunned down senselessly while doing their jobs.
But wait……can we address this whole gun control thing yet?
Nah let’s wait until the next horrendous massacre. Or the next one. Or the one after that. Maybe one with some more kids murdered at school with semi-automatic weapons.
FUCK THIS, YOU GUYS. GUNS ARE A PROBLEM IN THIS COUNTRY AND IF YOU CAN’T SEE THAT YOU’RE DELUSIONAL.
Yes I’m angry and yes I’m screaming and yes I’m name calling to all the IDIOTS who act like guns aren’t a problem in America. I’m crying and screaming inside my head every single time these shootings happen. WHEN WILL IT STOP!? HOW MANY MORE TIMES!? WHY WON’T THE GOVERNMENT DO SOMETHING!? FUCK THE NRA!!!
And yes, I realize there are many other factors in play here. There is mental illness. There are really fucked up people who have had terrible things happen to them and had no parenting and were raised on the Internet and have a completely delusional view of society and right and wrong. They have been abused and bullied and feel they have to commit MURDER to A) Get revenge and B) Get attention, even if it’s posthumous. But they weren’t born like that. Babies aren’t popping out the womb ready to mass murder. They’ve been made that way by their upbringing (or lack thereof) and our culture. But those are WAAAAY bigger problems to solve. Because that’s our world now, y’all. These are the people in our society. And they’re multiplying. And it’s terrifying. And we need to work on it–we need to expand mental health care, continue to make birth control easily accessible so people who can’t/shouldn’t be parents don’t procreate, and work on recognizing signs in people (in school, at the workplace, etc.) who may be dangerous.
But what we CAN do NOW is make and change laws. It should be really hard to get an object that can take someone’s life in one second flat. Someone said this on Facebook and it’s perfect: “Guns should be difficult to get. Getting a gun should be one of the hardest things to do. It is a right guaranteed by the Constitution that should be applied equally and fairly but it doesn’t mean it has to be easy. If owning a gun is that important to you, then you should be willing to wait one year to get one. There should be a limit on how many guns you can have unless you have a collectors license. There should be really strict laws governing gun shows and online purchases, age limits that are strictly enforced. Instead, the NRA fights EVERY attempt to tighten rules. Yet conservatives and libertarians don’t fight back. We have Stand Your Ground, guns are permissible in bars, and you can buy a gun online and get it within weeks.”
It’s absolute insanity. It truly is. So mix the ease of getting guns with a bunch of unstable, angry people running around and BAM: Shooting on shootings on shootings.
And guess what? Tightening gun laws and making changes won’t fix the problem tomorrow. It will take years. But it WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Are people still going to murder and bomb and do unspeakable things? Yup. But there will be less and less of it and that’s what matters.
In the New York Times article by Nicholas Kristof (the best piece I’ve read about this topic, and I encourage everyone to read), he states, “We’re not going to eliminate gun deaths in America. But a serious effort might reduce gun deaths by, say, one-third, and that would be 11,000 lives saved a year. The United States is an outlier, both in our lack of serious policies toward guns and in our mortality rates. Professor Hemenway calculates that the U.S. firearm homicide rate is seven times that of the next country in the rich world on the list, Canada, and 600 times higher than that of South Korea. We need universal background checks with more rigorous screening, limits on gun purchases to one a month to reduce trafficking, safe storage requirements, serial number markings that are more difficult to obliterate, waiting periods to buy a handgun — and more research on what steps would actually save lives. If the federal government won’t act, states should lead.”
And while I’m sharing intelligent commentary I’ve read on the Internet, let me share the dumbest thing I read this week (and it was not a joke): “Obesity leads to more deaths every year in America than violent crimes. I guess we should ban forks, spoons and knives.”
That comment makes me want to kill myself. Can someone hand me a fork?
And now that I’ve said my piece, I want to share the most brilliant thing I’ve seen on this topic: A standup bit by Australian comedian Jim Jefferies that addresses our shooting epidemic and absolutely slams every ridiculous argument Americans use to defend guns. EVERY SINGLE ONE. He could not echo my thoughts (and the thoughts of many others) better. Not to mention it’s hilarious.
Please watch it, every second of it. And if you’re going to comment on this blog with one of the arguments he addresses, watch it again.
Thinking of the victims and praying for a difference,
Ashley
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