Team —
This shouldn’t be normal.
And yet, the news of yet another mass shooting no longer shatters the national psyche the way it once did. The lawmakers who have built their careers on cozying up to the gun industry no longer are made to feel pressure or shame. It’s just assumed they’ll do nothing. In fact, after the shooting in Nashville, one member of Congress from Tennessee actually said it out loud: “We’re not going to fix this.”
On Monday, gun violence hit close to home. Five people killed at Old National Bank in Louisville. Five families ripped apart forever. Five more whose family and friends and loved ones will never get another minute together.
That story is in the news today. And it might be tomorrow. But by next week, the rest of the country will move on — to something Trump did, or to some meaningless controversy about “wokeism.” Maybe it’ll be another mass shooting that takes over the conversation. Considering we’ve had over 140 in the country in just over 100 days of 2023, that seems like a safe bet.
But when the rest of the country moves on, when Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul stop getting asked questions about gun violence in their home state, people in Louisville will still be grieving.
I refuse to believe that’s the world any of us wants to live in. It certainly doesn’t feel like freedom. More than anything, I’m so sick and tired of being told that nothing can be done about it.
The answer is simpler than the other side wants you to think. They blame mental illness and video games and churchgoing rates — practically any other explanation that allows them to sit on their hands and do nothing about the weapons of war that are pervasive in our society.
Today, I’m not asking you to make a political donation — frankly, that’s only part of the solution. I’m asking you to join the growing chorus of people saying ENOUGH — to commit to calling out the people who shrug their shoulders and say there’s nothing we can do. Say it out loud, on social media, somewhere other people can hear it.
Let’s break this cycle and stop normalizing mass shootings. Let’s remind ourselves and our friends and neighbors that this is a fixable problem, and the vast majority of Americans want it fixed.
No matter what, don’t let them force you to accept this as normal. Because it never will be.
Amy
