On May 14, an eighteen year old walked into a Top’s neighborhood market in New York, and massacred ten people. There we’re the usual platitudes, thoughts and prayers; there were the usual pleas and accusations from Republicans not to politicize an already political situation. Democrats railed against a Republican party and it’s media allies for enabling the situation through it’s rhetoric of a white replacement conspiracy – and rightly so. Democrats and the media talked about gun control and the killer’s easy access to dangerous weapons.
Meanwhile, Congress and the president failed to act.
Ten days later, once again, an eighteen year old entered an elementary school in Uvalde county, Texas and murdered nineteen children and two teachers. Once again, were the usual platitudes of thoughts and prayers, and the accusations of politicizing a political situation.
But this time it was different: The killer wasn’t a white nationalist. He appeared to be a loner who was reported to be bullied by classmates. The police response to the situation was slow and appears to involve negligence, failing to act in time to save any of those children.
While the so called liberal mainstream media – MSNBC and CNN – have covered the event almost continuously, and have been highly critical of the police’s response to the situation, Fox News, and other right-wing media have done their usual obfuscating and deflecting away from the subject of guns, rather focusing their attention on absurd ways to prevent school shootings by turning them into prisons.
Meanwhile, Congress and the president have failed to act. Instead there has been talk, talk and more talk, and most likely, just as in the case of Sandy Hook, El Paso, and Christchurch, nothing meaningful will be done.
The Biden’s are scheduled to visit Texas on Sunday.
“Jill and I will be travelling to Texas in the coming days to meet with the families, and let them know we have a sense of their pain, and hopefully bring some little comfort to a community in shock, in grief, in trauma,” Biden said earlier this week at the White House.
There are those who believe that the president can wave his magic pen and make it all better. As the president, as far as I know – I may be mistaken – he has the authority to enact executive action on gun legislation, such as a ban on assault weapons. Will that prevent mass shootings from occuring again? Unfortunately, no.
They will continue until Congress can get off it’s ass, and get serious about the lives of children. They – and I’m talking about mostly Republicans here – need to stop paying lip service to saving the lives of zygotes, and get serious about saving the lives of actual living children.
Sources: Deadline, USA Today.
The Weekly News 