We were told for years that we would be safer if the good guys had guns.
Today we have more guns in the USA than ever, yet we continue to have mass shootings and other gun violence. Today there are 466 million guns in the hands of the citizens of this country.
In addition, we have had 146 mass shootings already this year, and the number continues to grow each week.
The most horrific of guns is the AR-15 (ASSAULT RIFLE) and its sisters. These powerful weapons destroy the victim’s body, sometimes way beyond recognition. On children and their fragile bodies, the damage is even more horrendous. Perhaps we need to have a web page dedicated to the pictures of the carnage that these weapons reap on our kids. In many states, these weapons used in mass shootings are not destroyed but sold in a public auction. These shootings affect almost one out of 5 families in the USA.
Emmett Till’s mother in 1955 opened his casket so that the media and all could see what the torture and lynching violence of racism had done to her 14-year-old son while he was vacationing in Mississippi. The white woman who had accused Till much later recanted her charges against this young man. In San Salvador, at the UCA, the Jesuit University, they have a picture album open to the public that shows in vivid color the brutality of the weapons of war against the Jesuit Priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter. When I opened the book some years ago, I wanted to turn away, and the wounds were most horrific. But I knew I needed to see this awful part of our history. Last summer, only one family in Uvalde, Texas, sent a photo of their child’s body to Texas Governor Greg Abbot. Perhaps if all the family members had sent those photos of the mutilated bodies of the children to the governor and the media, we might think differently about these weapons of war.
Every state has rules for hunting, and you must get a license for each species you want to kill. Also, they tell you how many you can kill. Automatic weapons are not allowed; thus, you could not use an AR-15 plus an assault rifle which would ruin the animal killed. And there are specific seasons when you can hunt these animals.
But our children have no protection from the AR-15. You can kill them year around, and there is no limit on how many you can shoot. There exists an open season to kill our children. With these weapons, you can kill large numbers in minutes or until the police or others intervene.
The police have acknowledged that they fear confronting a gunman who has such a powerful weapon. In Uvalde, almost 400 armed law enforcement officers waited 77 minutes as victims bled to death before they faced the shooter. In the case of Club Q in Colorado Springs Richie Fierro, an unarmed army veteran, stopped the shooter only after five had been killed, including his daughter’s boyfriend, and many others wounded. Had Fierro not acted, many more would have been injured and killed.
Guns are deficient in the hands of the wrong people, and their access to weapons of war puts us all in danger.
As some Governors, NRA, and others push for easy access to weapons and the right to carry them openly in public, they simultaneously oppose these armed people attending their conventions. If they support more guns and fewer restrictions, they must welcome their members to their conventions and state houses Locked and Loaded.
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