The faces-the loss....in America

 

        We cry. We rage. Again our hearts are broken. It is an aberration. It is an American act.

      As we look at photos of each of the victims we are crushed by the loss of innocence, the sweet childhood, the promise, the hope of young lives, the murdered love of family. We are killing America. 

    We destroy our truth, we bury our aspirational promise of the Constitution to be a more perfect union, to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility. We do not secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and posterity. We kill them. We put money and political power over the sweet faces and the future of our children in America.

    Here a teen boy can not buy a beer, but he can buy assault weapons. Why shouldn't 21 years be the mandatory minimum for a gun purchase? Why? Because Republicans are owned by and work for the gun makers. Because Republicans are now afraid to cross the gun crazy nation they and the NRA created during decades of clever deception about the 2nd Amendment.  Because Republicans, not even 10 of them, will vote to make that a law. They are American cowards.

    President Biden is limited in what he can. Politics is why. Were it his to act unilaterally, gun safety laws would change. Democrats, who have been pushing gun laws since the murder of innocents in Newtown, are now doubling down on efforts to find ways to bring 10 Republicans into support of the change that 76% of the American people want. 

    Now parents, grand parents, and caregivers worry about their loved ones. They and teachers and counselors have the  task of explaining to their children or wards that American children, just like them, may be killed in their school, or at the super market, or movie theatre, or church by an assault weapon because there are so many guns and they are so easy to buy, in America. 

    Gun manufactures bought the NRA and turned it into the money pipeline for Senators and Representatives who have worked for decades to loosen gun laws. Fewer regulations mean more sales. Now that right wing looney authoritarians control the Republican party there is a population of gun owning folks, confused about the 2nd Amendment, who are willing to fight to keep their assault weapons. They are also Americans.

    Background checks, age requirements, tighter security on sales and transactions does not mean the Federal government is "coming after your weapon(s)." But a lot of people have been misled and manipulated by the NRA and Republicans into thinking that, in America.

    No one can deny there is an epidemic of mass killings in one nation on this planet. There have been many moments like the pain, grief, shock, loss and hurt we now endure. It is an American ritual.

    Can enough Republicans find a sense of virtue, decency, and goodness, to honor at least 10 of the dead children? Can the two Democrat problem weasels stay with their party for once and can the Senate finally give the American people what they want in gun laws? Now, that would be an American victory.

    Love the children. Keep them safe.

    See you down the trail.