Not ending gun violence is a choice
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No images? Click here  May 26, 2022 Dear Meteor readers, On Tuesday morning, 19 elementary school students in Uvalde, Texas, got ready for school. They threw their homework into their backpacks, finished their breakfast, tied their shoes, and ran out the door. Those nineteen children with entire lives ahead of them—two days before the end of the school year and the joy of summer break—never returned home. They, along with two of their teachers, were gunned down by weapons so powerful that the bodies of the victims were unrecognizable. They were targeted, hunted, and brutally killed by an 18-year-old who had legally purchased two assault rifles on his birthday. The tragedy is unspeakable—but it is no longer unimaginable. It is now a well-worn, inevitable cycle—a mass shooting, lives shattered, outcry, grief, and…no substantial change. The headlines end up on the lower half of the paper; the questions to politicians stop, and the trauma gets ingrained. As a father of a Parkland victim told Anderson Cooper on CNN Tuesday night, “it’s what I call a ‘new normal’.” The idea of a father who has lost a child to gun violence having to acknowledge that this horror now seems “normal” made us sick to our stomachs. But he is, after all, right: This is not the first time we’ve been here, nor will it be the last. This is the third mass shooting in a week; there have been 212 in the United States alone this year and 27 of them have been in schools. Every shooting, we are told, is the “tipping point” that will change the will of politicians on guns. But Congress has yet to pass any meaningful gun control legislation for 28 years, since the assault-weapons ban of 1994. After Sandy Hook, another supposed tipping point, the Republican-controlled Senate thwarted every effort to pass a sensible gun law—including enhanced background checks, something 90% of Americans support. We’ve been worn down by years of inaction. It makes sense to feel hopeless.  MASS SHOOTINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN NEARLY EVERY STATE IN THE U.S. AND POLITICIANS ARE STILL DRAGGING THEIR FEET OVER REFORM. (IMAGE VIA EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY) But it’s also exactly what opponents of gun reform want us to feel. As Molly Jong-Fast put it on Twitter, we need to take bold action now; if we do not, the Republicans will do what they always do–“memory-hole” this tragedy and use talking points and legal grandstanding to erase the fact that what we’re talking about is the bloody massacre of innocent children. But if you are looking for immediate and decisive action—you’d be hard-pressed to find it from Democrats right now, either. “When in God’s name will we stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden asked in his address to the nation. “What are we doing?” cried Senator Chris Murphy on the Senate floor (great speech…but who is we). “Americans can cast their vote in November,” Senator Chuck Schumer said when asked if Tuesday’s tragedy would precipitate an immediate gun bill that could save lives. Should they not have the answers? Isn’t that the reason we all got out the vote in the last umpteen elections? Should they not have the plan? And why did Democratic party leadership endorse incumbent anti-abortion Rep. Henry Cuellar (who has an A rating from the NRA) over pro-gun control and pro-choice candidate Jessica Cisneros in none other than Texas? Make it make sense.  WE KNOW YOU’RE SICK OF HEARING IT BUT ELECTIONS ARE CRITICAL!! (IMAGE VIA VOTO LATINO) The bottom line is this: We could dramatically reduce gun violence now, and not doing so is a deliberate choice. As Chris Hayes pointed out: Many of the issues that plague the United States are complicated—they are rooted in histories of oppression, of colonization. But not guns. Gun violence, at the rate that it occurs in the United States, is uniquely American and is directly connected to how many guns civilians can and already have access to. If you make guns less accessible, gun violence drops. No other country’s leadership sits by idly while their children are slaughtered at school. But we can do something—donate, call your legislator, share resources, march. We’ve put together a list below of actions you can take today. It won’t bring those children back. Won’t help the parents who waited last night at the Uvalde civic center to confirm if their child was dead or alive. But it’s our only option. As our colleague Brittany Packnett Cunningham says on today’s UNDISTRACTED, “I don’t know what it’s going to take. But I can’t live like this. My son can’t live like this. None of us should have to live like this.” Y por nuestros gentes Latines, estamos unidos en nuestro dolor. No se importa si somos Mexicanos, Borinquen, Dominicanos, Sudamericanos—en este momento somos una sola comunidad fuertisomo. Sobreviviremos. Pa’lante. Siempre, pa’lante. In love and solidarity, Samhita and Shannon  WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOWIf you’re someone who believes in thoughts, prayers, full moon rituals, or faith in a higher power, please do all of those things and call on all the gods and ancestors. But as many prophets have taught, faith without works is dead. Here are some small works that can make a difference: TO HELP THE FAMILIES IN UVALDE
TO HELP KIDS ACROSS THE U.S. COPE WITH THIS AND FUTURE DISASTERS
TO HELP END GUN VIOLENCE
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