Gun Control

I want to talk about a moment in history. The Uvalde Robb school shooting.

Tragedy doesn’t quite cut it. At time of writing I’m in a café overlooking a river in which children the age of the victims play completely oblivious to the real and present threat that their American peers face.

My nephew is American. I get scared every time I hear about these shootings because, like every other relative of Americans I’m thinking. “Is he next? Please God let him not be next.”

The ultimate truth here is that everything in life is a choice and the American cultural choice is that they love their guns more than their children. They get irrational about it.

Me personally? Well, I believe you need to check your circle of friends, acquaintances and the neighbourhood you live in if the only way you feel safe is if you are in possession of a weapon.

The thing about guns is that, unless you are in the military, you are 100% untrained to use them. Someone going to war has the unstated assumption that if you use that gun, you will kill another person. But that killing is justified under the terms of war. People only serve their countries in believing that killing another person brings about a greater good for them and their country. That is why killing civilians is so frowned upon. No way is killing an innocent person minding their own business furthers your cause.

Meanwhile we give civilians guns in the USA. They don’t know the extent of the damage a gun can do to another person, and equally important their families. Every time you kill a person with a gun. You kill a person with a gun. If you didn’t understand the first and second times, life is precious, death if final. Killing someone with a gun is always wrong. You are robbing them of their future, you are robbing their families, friends and acquaintances of the joy of having them in their own future. You are robbing the world of all their good traits. Why? Because you hate this or that or the other.

I am not, by the way overlooking the horrendous murder of 11 black people in New York due to the racial hatred of someone. That man was disturbed. I will get to him later. But this was kids. Innocent little children. Filled with joy, and light and silliness and in a world already overburdened with grief we really needed those children. We needed their innocence, we needed them to bring us back to the reason why. We needed them alive, now our hearts are broken because they are dead.

I want to sadly write also about the 22nd victim. He didn’t die of a gunshot wound. Joe Garcia died of a broken heart (the medical cause of death was a heart attack) this man had been married 24 years and when his wonderful wife died protecting children, his body could not take the pain. He joined her in the grave. That is what is meant by to death do us part. He had a physical response to the pain he was experiencing. As someone who has experienced heartbreak but not quite in that level I know for sure it can phusically kill you. I am so sad for him, my heart breaks for him and his family. That gunman made 4 people orphans for no reason. The youngest orphan is 12.

Then there was the racist killing (read localised genocide) in new York not even 1 month before. I really mean it when I call it a localised genocide. He was trying to eradicate black people. He didn’t know these people he had no real issue with these people personally, only 2% of their DNA got 100% of the person killed. Being black should not be a death sentence. But it was for these people.

What I pray for here is healing, we lost 11 faithful souls. What we cannot start is a race war, especially not in a country where everyone has guns. Ever heard of MAD? Mutually Assured Destruction. Don’t think that it is just nukes that can kill us all. Gun control is a major cause of death for the under 40’s in the USA.

Its really hard to understand why people need to carry guns. They talk about being “the good guys with guns” which is a fallacy working against human nature. All humans have light and dark in them. So what happens when you are a “good guy with a gun” and you shoot someone to stop a shooting, you shoot them in the arm to debilitate them. Then you realise you enjoy it and you keep shooting? Now you are a bad guy with a gun. Who will stop you? Well law enforcement. Ultimately. So why not let them do their jobs straight away?

There is never any justification for shooting a fellow civilian. Never. Not adultery revenge, borrowed money revenge, self defence is a grey area but otherwise its never okay.

Do the USA think they have a monopoly on bad people? We have mentally disturbed people in the UK and every country, and yet we don’t get as many mass shootings. Why? Because we don’t give our civilians lethal weapons and we don’t give so much credence to guns in our culture. We aren’t as aggressive and adversarial.

I remember when Gabby Giffard the congresswoman got shot. I remember hearing graphic details of her only being alive because the first aider on the scene, quite literally plugged the hole in her head. She suffered life changing injuries and is a living representation of how dangerous guns are. Someone merely disagreed with her on a political point and decided she should die for it.

I remember all the times of black children/men/women being shot whilst running away from police, mistaken identity shootings, children shooting themselves due to accidently handling of guns, Sandy hook. In my lifetime there have been way too many tragedies to mention, yet we keep killing. Why? Why does everyone hate their fellow man so much? Why do we feel like we need the power of life and death as the only way to silence our enemies? Why do we have so many enemies?

Please, I implore you, as an aunt of an American, let these children be the last kids we bury due to gun violence.

Grace and courage.

Annetta Mother Smith.