Hello my Southern Brother. I bring greetings and a message.
That was the greeting.
This is the message:
It’s time to grow up. Growing up means looking around and seeing what is really true. What is really true is your society is fecked and all the John Waynes in the world cain’t hardly fix it.
How many of your children do you need to see killed by your own people’s hands - with the guns you make so readily available - before you begin to suspect that maybe, just maybe, your almighty worship of the 2nd Amendment is a bit - well, so 19th century? (I sincerely and deeply apologize for the previous sentence. Parse it at your risk.).
It’s 2012. Most of the developed world’s citizens handle gun ownership sensibly. Only one of them still considers it a Divine Right of The Only God That Matters.
That would be YOU, USA. You, who continue to kill your children in your schools. Or movie-goers in their theatres. Or wherever a crowd - and future, fleeting internet/tv glory - abides.
Your gun-worshipping culture is killing your children at a rate that appals the rest of the world. Yet here and there, I see and hear pockets of Americans whispering the heresy of...gasp...gun control. They are quickly and vociferously drowned out by the outraged Gun Worshippers and their well-funded PR machine.
They even somehow manage to spin their voodoo to suggest that only gun-totin’ “real” Americans are favoured by Jesus Christ All-Mighty His Own Self. And that pencil-necked Liberal pansies are first in line for eternal fiery torment - so help ya’ god.
And so it goes.
On and on.
The heartbreak of torn-apart families. The burials of small children who had no understandable, earthly reason to be dead so soon. Communities, teachers, parents everywhere living with a new nightmare.
It’s very wrong. And I think making guns, especially handguns and assault weapons, more difficult to buy, would go a long way towards stopping horrors like that of Dec. 14th, 2012 in Newtown Connecticut.
At least talk about it. Nobody is taking guns away. Just talk about making them a little tougher to get and their owner vetted more closely.
In Canada, if you want to buy a gun you need to get a Firearms Acquisition Certificate. In order to get said certificate, you need to pass a police check and a firearms safety course. Then, and only then, can you purchase a gun and ammunition.
If you feel the need to carry a handgun because of your business or the fact you belong to a gun club, you apply for a permit to buy and carry one. As far as I know, this may require a deeper background check and/or more training with a weapon before the handgun permit is issued.
If taking one more course, or having to purchase one more permit, or having to wait two more weeks, means one more whacko flips out BEFORE getting his hands on a piece - all of society will benefit.
So please, my Brother By A Southern Mother, just talk about it.
Don’t bury more of your children. It doesn’t need to be like this.
