What is devouring our democracy? Is gun violence the problem or is it merely a symptom of a larger problem?
Jeff Munoz
On one hand, violence is part of the fabric of this country and I’ve become desensitized to much of it. We all have in one way or another, which is really scary or sad or both. I’ve known it, in some form, all my life. Though March for Our Lives seems like a distant memory, it was only four years ago, after the Parkland massacre. So, is anyone really surprised that these mass shootings are still happening? There have been more mass shootings in 2022 than weeks! At this rate, we can expect to shatter last year’s high of 30-something K-12 fatal shootings.
Just in the month of May, there have been at least three major incidents of massive gun violence. A white supremacist ambushed and killed Black folks in a Buffalo grocery store. Another incident occurred in Milwaukee at a Bucks playoff game. How many more people have to die for our politicians to do something? When you think deeply about it, there’s actually no number because if there were, the regulation would have occurred a decade ago after Sandy Hook.
On the other hand, I wish it would stop. I have a 12-year-old son, who deserves to live in peace in a society free of these types of unnecessary tragedies. Given the frequency of these mass killings, I’ve gathered that our political system is completely broken. It lives in a world unto itself. A sideshow disconnected from the needs and representation of real people. We’ve been asking for real change but tragedies like this keep happening. Do our elected officials do anything? Yes, yes they do! They walk a tightrope between actually doing something and handwringing about needing to. And it is a conscious decision. They are servants not to people but to capital – even capital that kills children – and they are denying us our freedom to live.
So where do we go from here? Why is this happening? Clearly, our society is sick and diseased. Some even say it’s dying. Could there be a more poignant indication of this than innocent elementary school children being extinguished at the hands of a bigger kid wielding an assault weapon? Steve Kerr said last night at the Warriors-Mavs press conference, we can’t allow ourselves to become numb to this violence. I agree. We also can’t continue in this current set of politics, the binary duopoly of Democrats and Republicans facilitating corporate domination over everything.
Then the only way forward is for people and communities to come together and organize for a better way to live in peace. We need new politics unless we wish to keep reliving these nightmarish events week after week, year after year.
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