Last week in the news there were two stories. One story was about the shooting of a 15 year old girl. Another story covered the shooting at a senior living facility. The victims at the facility seem to be workers not the facilities customers.
The two things that struck me right away concerning these stories were; the dichotomy of the demographics and the similarities of the tragedies. One story involved a child whose whole life was ahead of her. Chances are high that she had plans and dreams but these dreams and plans were killed when she was gunned down. The other story involved men and women who had lived a lot of their lives and dreams and hopes. Both stories involved gun violence.
Here is another story about gun violence in the United States. It seems that this year 2021 is on track to be the most violent year in regards to to gun violence in the last twenty years.
Prior to this year America was living in one of the safest times ever. What has happened? The last time major change has happened from the Federal government with regards to gun control was about 25 years ago during the Clinton administration.
Both the Brady Bill and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban were signed into law while Bill Clinton were enacted during the Clinton administration. These two laws did a lot for the safety of the country with regards to gun violence. Some interesting numbers here, show that 1993 had the most gun deaths and that 2021 is now on track to beat that number.
Through the years the Brady Bill has had much of its rules stripped and the Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to expire. After the expiration and the watered down Brady Bill gun violence went up quickly. This is strong evidence that the federal laws worked to keep the guns out of the violent peoples hands and protect our children.
Despite evidence for the importance of gun control many people believe that gun control is not needed.
Hope and denial are two human traits. Hope is trust that something good will happen. Denialism is a persons choice to deny reality despite the facts. Denialism is unfounded hope. Denialism is a trait that has no power. Denialism is what seems to have fueled the push for the lapse of the Assault Weapons Ban and the stripping away of the Brady Bill. Denialism masquerading as hope.
There is a hope that people will not harm people but this hope seems to be unfounded when people have the massive firepower in hand(pun intended). Throughout history we have seen that un checked power results in human devastation. In biblical times all the way through current history this has been the theme.
When someone has a gun or access to a gun with little to no checks or rules in place we see extreme acts of violence. We have twenty years of a study in place to prove that this is truth and yet the debate is still raging on.
Lets live and work together with hope not denialism. Lets end the needless debates and do some good.
The Corrigan Encore 