Infuriatingly, though not surprisingly, I don’t see much (if anything) being done in the coming weeks and months to prevent another tragedy like this from happening again. The democrats in power are completely fucking spineless, and the conservatives in power are only making it easier for sick fucks to commit mass terrorism.
On the surface, I get that it feels completely hopeless. It feels like we don’t have the power to change anything. It feels like we’re being held hostage by fifty senators and governors who couldn’t care less about what occurred in Uvalde late last week, or what happened in Irvine early last week, or what happened in Buffalo a couple weeks back, the fucking list goes on!
But, do you have any idea how the people in office get there in the first place? They don’t magically materialize into Washington DC. They don't crawl out of the depths of Hell to rule over our nation (even though they often fucking act like one of Satan's minions). They’re put there by voters. They’re put there by people just like you and me, oftentimes by paper-thin margins. In many places, those senators win by merely three hundred votes, or even less than that. Three hundred people is all it often takes to put some people in DC. So, I no longer buy the idea that individual votes don’t mean shit. Because, in many elections that, while smaller, are still incredibly important, your ballot could be the one that makes a random person one of the most powerful people in the entire world!
Think about that for a minute, and remember that a lot of seats are up for grabs this coming November. Get your ass out there and vote, rain, shine, wind, and/or snow. I will be voting in every election I can from now on.
So, while it’s true that, at this rate, nothing will be done in the wake of these mass tragedies that continue to happen again, and again, and again, and again, and fucking again, we can still change things. And, any small change in the right direction is a good one. Even the most miniscule changes build up into tremendous ones.
With that said, I think it’s important to go back to what happened in Uvalde.
A lot is still unknown and unclear, and everything about this horrific shit is subject to change. But, what is clear is that the Uvalde shooter bought his firearms legally. Prior to his 18th birthday, he spent a lot of time on social media drooling over firearms and making thinly veiled threats about what he was gonna do the second he bought a gun. His peers and even his older sister described him as a "potential school shooter". He even tried to get his older sister to purchase a gun for him (which, by the way, is a felony called a straw-purchase, even among close family), but she outright refused.
The second he turned 18, he bought his first firearm (an AR), and bragged about it to his friends on social media. Soon after, he told a friend via social media, that he was going to do something to his grandma. He didn't reply back with details until his grandma was already shot. Then, he got into his grandma's pickup truck, but soon crashed it into a ditch near the elementary school, because he didn't have a driver's license and didn't know how to drive. By then, his grandma (who survived her injuries), managed to crawl to her neighbor's house and call 9-1-1. While she was airlifted to a hospital, the police began to track down this sick-fuck, and even made some contact with him before he managed to get into the school via an open side door (which a teacher had propped open to let in some fresh air). Even before this kid got to the school, he sent out some more social media messages bragging about how he was armed and heading to a school.
And well... The rest is fucking history.
In a sane country, this kid would’ve been disqualified from owning a firearm the second he made his first threat. In a sane country, this kid would’ve had to successfully complete a gun safety course and obtained a license to even legally touch a gun. In a sane country, this kid would’ve had to get psychologically evaluated by a licensed psychologist/psychiatrist, and then gotten them to sign a sheet of paper saying he’s sane enough to obtain a firearm. In a sane world, this mass atrocity, among many, many others, would not have happened.
This mass shooting was not an "unthinkable" or "isolated" incident. At least, not anymore. My favorite podcast, the H3H3 podcast, has spent the last few episodes discussing this shooting, as well as other relevant topics. On the podcast, the host, Ethan, calculated that roughly 5.5 "random" and "unthinkable" mass shootings happen every month in this country. Since the beginning of the pandemic, mass shootings in this country have increased by over 100%, and it seems like those numbers will just continue to rise. These shootings are almost never done without warning. So many of these mass shooters have been open about everything that they were up to, and everything that they were going to do. But, for whatever reason, they weren't taken seriously until after another mass shooting has taken place.
These fucking incidents are not "unthinkable" or "unimaginable" anymore. Anyone with two braincells to rub together would fucking get that by now. Prior to Columbine (which, I live really close to and know people who were there in 1999), mass shootings were shocking and unthinkable. But now? Now, these horrific shootings are about as 'Merican as Apple Pie, Whitetail Deer Hunting, and Football!
In a sane country, we would have passed laws years ago in an attempt to curb this violence. In a sane country, we wouldn't have weekly mass shootings. We wouldn't be talking about how teachers should be armed (which, I don't think they should for a plethora of reasons), and schools should be turned into windowless concrete bunkers, with metal detectors and armed guards. We wouldn't be fighting over which guns to ban for the millionth fucking time.
In a sane country, this stuff would truly be "unimaginable". Even to me, the paragraphs above belong in a shitty Young Adult dystopian sci-fi novel. Not as serious discourse in real fucking life.
Sadly, we don’t live in a sane country. Never have. Never fucking will. But, that isn’t an excuse to be apathetic. We can accept the facts that we live in a world forever full of death and carnage, and there will always be evil humans in our midst, and still work to make the world a safer place. Especially since no other country (besides those that are literal war zones), has ever experienced mass shooting after mass shooting like the “Greatest Country on the face of the Earth” has.
And yet, we continue to do nothing.
Even if nothing else changes, at the very least, we, as a country, can close the well-known “private seller loophole”. At the very least, we can make mental health care cheaper and more accessible to those who need it, and build up our infrastructure to house and take care of our citizens on the streets. And, we can get this basic shit done if we do things like vote and write our senators and public representatives. We don’t even need to leave our bedrooms to send an email or leave a voicemail for our elected officials. And voting in-person, while it’s a true pain in the ass, is worth the effort.
But, as it currently stands, absolutely nothing will change for the better, unless we get off our lazy, apathetic asses and vote like our lives depend on it. Because, frankly, they fucking do! It's not just guns I'm talking about here. It's about mental and physical healthcare, too, because our mental and physical health systems honestly fucking suck for most people, and are only getting shittier over time. I consider myself blessed to have access to the healthcare that I have, though I only have access to it because I have a mile-long list of major, diagnosed health issues that qualify me to have access to that healthcare. But, unless people have multiple and severe physical and/or mental health issues that have been proven to be disabling and terminal, it is exceedingly difficult for them to get adequate physical and mental healthcare.
And, if you just walk down a few blocks in downtown Denver (or any city downtown for that matter), you will see what a failing healthcare system does to people.
