Tennessee’s Governor Calls for Expanding a Gun Dispossession System Already Failing Domestic Violence Victims
After the Covenant School shooting, Gov. Bill Lee went beyond state Republicans in calling for reform. But the system he is embracing already allows violent people to hold on to their weapons.
Statistical data shows the NUMBER ONE thing that threatens the safety of children in America is not:
drag queens
transgender health care
books or libraries
women’s health care
easy access to voting
It’s #guns! It’s the easy access to ammo and guns coupled with the toxic need for men to measure up to each other.
This is what happens when you put unqualified, RW-Whack-a-Doodles in charge of your #PublicSchool system. Seriously, what is it with these people? They’re all fine with #Guns and #Violence, but anything sexual is evil? #GOP #RWNJ #Libraries
"Ringing the wrong doorbell, making a wrong turn, getting in the wrong car, and an errant basketball. A wounded teenager, a dead young woman, cheerleaders in critical condition, and a 6-year-old girl and her father shot.
It’s been a rough week for the 'well-regulated militia' folks. More good guys with guns, they told us. An armed society is a polite society, they claimed. More guns = less crime, their 'experts' insisted.
More than 20 years ago, I was leaving Chicago's O'Hare airport and headed for my car. I unlocked it (we had actual keys in those days), got in, looked around and realized it wasn't mine! Right section, wrong lot. Locked it up, went through the other side and found mine. Imagining if it was now and someone was in it.
"Americans seem to have a national anger-management problem, which grows even more toxic when it interacts with racism, sexism, jingoism, homophobia, transphobia and a slew of other “reasons” for hatred"
So, now we’ve got police going to the wrong address and shooting innocent civilians, and white civilians shooting innocent black kids who ring the wrong doorbell. The persistence of hate narratives and shoot-first-ask-questions-later knee jerk reactions show how absolutely dangerous an #NRA fueled gun society is. Their answer: More Guns! Because “guns aren’t the problem. People are the problem.” My question: So why in God’s name would you give guns to the problem? #guns#guncontrol#gunviolence
How do you do it? How do you sit and imagine a 9 year old, who went to school, who played at recess, who learned a new math equation becomes terrified. Hears loud sounds, uncertain what they are. Suddenly feels terror. Something is wrong. Something is very scary. The 9 year old wants the family that will bring safety, but that is impossible. Suddenly pain. Pain a 9 year old cannot fathom has entered and shattered the body that was just climbing the monkey bars. What is this pain? Why does this hurt so much? The child hears people but something very frightening is happening. The child wants to scream something very frightening is happening - why can't anyone hear?! The child only wants the family to come bring safety. The 9-year-old child cries in terror. A few tears is all that the child can manage. The child's body hurts so much. The child feels something fading. The child still wonders why the family he loves is not around to bring safety. The child, terrorized, body shattered, realizes this is some sort of end. A 9-year-old child cannot understand what this is, only that it is ending. So scared. What is happening?!
How can you sit with that... imagine it and sit with it ... feel the child's terror and wrestle with the shattering pain of a shattered body ... and still claim your rights to a gun matter more?
Today is the anniversary of the Kent State shootings, or more appropriately the "May 4th Massacre". In the wake of recent events and our consideration of gun control laws I think this day deserves a great deal of reflection. Four Americans were murdered, and nine more wounded, by our own national guard simply for participating in an anti-war demonstration. If we want to consider limiting access to guns on american soil lets start with our own national guard and police, not our citizens. The last thing I want to see is an unarmed populace needing to deal with a well-armed police and military force. Lets focus on securing the rights of the citizen, not giving them up