August 7, 2019
By: H. Elizabeth Williams
I don’t recognize my country anymore.
And you wonder why people don’t stand for the pledge of allegiance anymore, our country is fucked up right now.
August 3, 2019 El Paso, Texas: 22 dead and 12 injured.
August 3, 2019 Dayton, Ohio: 9 dead and 16 injured.
August 4, 2019 Chicago, Illinois (At 3 different locations): 25 dead and 46 wounded.
56 were murdered in under 24 hours… WAKE UP AMERICA!
My heart isn’t breaking. It’s been broken for all the victims of gun violence for years. I’m not even surprised anymore. It’s just a “yeah well of course it happened again, I mean duh” moment. No shock. This is now the normal. Congratulations we did it: we normalized mass murder.
I’m tired of people making excuses for these murderers and not willing to change anything because they love their guns more than children and pull on the 2nd amendment every time they need it for “evidence.”
Newsflash: The 2nd amendment was written in 1791 when the weapons were pistols and long rifles that had to be reloaded every shot. Also everyone’s teeth sucked and people died from colds. But let's protect your grenade launcher from the libs.
Stop telling me “Only good guys with guns can stop a bad guy with a gun”... There were plenty of good guys with guns in Dayton, and they got the bad guy IN UNDER 60 SECONDS- he still shot 32 people.
Stop telling me it’s not the shooter’s fault and that he’s sick just because the dude is white. Racism is not a mental illness. Bigotry is not a disease. Xenophobia is not a chemical imbalance in the brain. These radicalized white men don’t need to be put on a list for a therapist; they need to be put on a terrorist watch list.
The el Paso gunman drove NINE hours to the Texas Border to kill people of color. White supremacy is not a mental illness. It’s an ideology encouraged by the President and too many of our nation’s leaders, and it’s made deadly in America via easy to access ro arsenals and ammunition.
Everyone talks about gun control in light of mass shootings. I’m not going to deny the danger of guns and how they are used as an instrument of violence. But when are we going to realize that the root problem is white supremacy and racist, nationalistic violence?
If you blame US gun violence on mental illness, then you are guilty of scapegoating and are part of the problem. This is what happens when you scapegoat mental health for causing mass shootings:
You stigmatize and demonize mental illness, meaning that those living with untreated mental illness will internalize ableist self hatred and be less likely to seek help.
You endanger mentally ill people who are already openly receiving healthcare and accommodations, threatening us with involuntary institutionalization and denial of civil rights based solely on ableist stereotypes.
You diminish and trivialize the epidemic of violence committed against the disabled population, who are far more likely to experience gun-related suicide and police brutality than neurotypical people.
You fail to recognize the crucial role that poor regulation of firearms plays in exacerbating the scope of these massacres.
You hurt women, the LGBT+ community, and people of color everywhere. The vast majority of mass murderers are cis white men and many explicitly state white supremacy, misogyny, transphobia and homophobia as their motives. White nationalist patriarchy causes mass shootings and your denial of that fact makes you part of the problem.
I’m frustrated. I’m angry. I’m done playing nice. It’s ridiculous people see it as an accomplishment that they’ve gone 18 years and 7 months without being killed in a mass shooting.
That’s great that you guys are posting on your instagram stories bringing awareness to it, but if you want to help you have to do more than that. In order to actually change something as massive as this we need everyone on board. I don’t care if you’re left or right just drop the stubbornness, get off your high horse and work together! The problem i’ve seen when democrats and republicans try to talk to one another you don’t really listen. You can find a middle ground if you just shut up and listen to each others reasoning. It sounds so simple but for some reason people can’t seem to figure it out.
We are going through the 249th mass shooting of 2019… This is the 215th day of 2019. But who am I kidding? In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.
Author's Note: You want to educate yourself on gun violence prevention? That’s great! However, maybe try a more credible source than Twitter. With that said, I’m starting a new project. There’s a free online course at Johns Hopkins University that teaches you about all aspects of gun violence prevention. If you don’t have the time to go through that class I’ll be posting lessons from it on here.
Sources:
John's Hopkins University Gun Violence Prevention Class