Stop Gun Violence - Blog Posts
This exactly. I've heard the argument that if someone wants to go on a mass shooting spree they'll find a way. That's bullshit. Yes if someone is determined to hurt someone bad enough they will but we don't have to make it easier for them to do so. We should have already been making it harder for murderers to murder. The fact that an 18 year old who is not even legally allowed to purchase alcohol can legally purchase an AR-15 should speak for itself. It's about creating roadblocks and deterrents for mass shooters. We should have already done this. Hell humanity is so full of apathy that if you make things difficult enough I'm convinced most people won't bother. Even if that's not the case is what we're doing now working? Has anything been working? Obviously not or this would be a non issue so I ask you, what's the harm in trying something new? The most stricter gun laws could do is not work and since we're already there...
Why not?
On Wednesday afternoon, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott briefed reporters about the school shooting in the town of Uvalde that left 19 children and two adults dead, he was approached by an unexpected speaker—his Democratic opponent in this fall’s election, Beto O’Rourke. The former El Paso congressman and presidential candidate, who had been waiting silently in an aisle seat in the school auditorium, walked up to the stage and began to challenge the governor.
“You’re doing nothing,” O’Rourke said. “You’re offering us nothing. You said this was not predictable. This was totally predictable.”
He was shouted down by some of the people on stage. One called O’Rourke a “sick son of a bitch.”
“This is not the time or the place to do that,” said another.
“Don’t play this stunt,” Sen. Ted Cruz told him.
Eventually, O’Rourke was escorted away from the stage by police.
Crashing your opponent’s press conference is, as Cruz said, a stunt. Of course it is. But so was the event O’Rourke was crashing, in which the most powerful men in the state assembled at a school auditorium to do…what, do they do, exactly?
We’re all familiar with this routine by now—the elected officials who descend on the scene in their best emergency-response earth tones to bask in their proximity to law enforcement and collectively absolve everyone with power of any responsibility. People like Abbott and Cruz and Ken Paxton and Dan Patrick—the state’s Republican attorney general and lieutenant governor—will emphasize the “tragedy” of what happened and the unpredictability of it all. There were no obvious signs, Abbott said on Wednesday, not long before O’Rourke’s interruption; law enforcement acted quickly, he said, and saved lives; the assault rifles he acquired shortly before the shootings were, of course, purchased legally. They’ll give a few days of defensive interviews about hiring veterans to stand guard at schools. Maybe, in a few weeks, we’ll get “Uvalde Strong” t-shirts.
O’Rourke’s rhetoric on gun control viscerally shifted after the 2019 massacre targeting Mexican and Mexican-American shoppers at an El Paso Walmart. He pushed a mandatory assault-rifle buyback program during that campaign and said at a presidential debate, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” He now says he is “not interested in taking anything from anyone,” but he has criticized Abbott for signing a law that allows anyone to carry a handgun without even acquiring a permit.
Ultimately, the question of whether his intervention Wednesday was polite or not is less important than the fact that O’Rourke is right. The effect, if not the outright point, of events like the one he crashed is to ensure that the right time and the place to discuss gun control never comes—to indulge the delusion that the people who are truly doing nothing are actually doing something. The shooting was predictable, if not in the specific sense, then in the broader one: The state’s and the country’s gun laws enable outcomes such as this by design. If it wasn’t predictable, then why can we keep predicting it?
My sister told me a story that I can't stop thinking about in the wake of all this. When she was in first grade they had an active shooter drill, only no one was informed it was drill. There was some mix up with the codes or something. Anyway the point is they all thought it was real. My sister says she remembers the teacher very quietly telling the class that there was an active shooter in the building and that this was not a drill. She says she remembers hearing screaming and crying from kids down the hall. She told me they all had to put on bright orange bullet proof vests and she remembers thinking that the color would only make it easier for the shooter to spot them. She remembers being scared. She remembers seeing someone walking up the hall through the heavily tinted glass. They kept trying to open the door and my little sister said she genuinely thought she was going to die. She was terrified she would never see me or my mom again.
It ended up being the principal coming to tell them that it was just a drill but it was a little too late in my opinion. That fear my sister and her classmates experience was real even if the threat wasn't and that memory is something she still carries with her.
We have to do better.
Republicans are more concerned with denying people bodily autonomy and keeping kids from learning prejudice exists than doing anything to keep those same kids from being shot by the guns they want everyone to have
They also seem to think that children are not mature enough to handle the existence of non cis/hetero people , but they are mature enough to live with the constant danger of a stranger busting into their classroom and ending their young lives
I feel sick.
Seeing it like this is really shocking:
Thurston High School.
Columbine High School.
Heritage High School.
Deming Middle School.
Fort Gibson Middle School.
Buell Elementary School.
Lake Worth Middle School.
University of Arkansas.
Junipero Serra High School.
Santana High School.
Bishop Neumann High School.
Pacific Lutheran University.
Granite Hills High School.
Lew Wallace High School.
Martin Luther King, Jr. High School.
Appalachian School of Law.
Washington High School.
Conception Abbey.
Benjamin Tasker Middle School.
University of Arizona.
Lincoln High School.
John McDonogh High School.
Red Lion Area Junior High School.
Case Western Reserve University.
Rocori High School.
Ballou High School.
Randallstown High School.
Bowen High School.
Red Lake Senior High School.
Harlan Community Academy High School.
Campbell County High School.
Milwee Middle School.
Roseburg High School.
Pine Middle School.
Essex Elementary School.
Duquesne University.
Platte Canyon High School.
Weston High School.
West Nickel Mines School.
Joplin Memorial Middle School.
Henry Foss High School.
Compton Centennial High School.
Virginia Tech.
Success Tech Academy.
Miami Carol City Senior High School.
Hamilton High School.
Louisiana Technical College.
Mitchell High School.
E.O. Green Junior High School.
Northern Illinois University.
Lakota Middle School.
Knoxville Central High School.
Willoughby South High School.
Henry Ford High School.
University of Central Arkansas.
Dillard High School.
Dunbar High School.
Hampton University.
Harvard College.
Larose-Cut Off Middle School.
International Studies Academy.
Skyline College.
Discovery Middle School.
University of Alabama.
DeKalb School.
Deer Creek Middle School.
Ohio State University.
Mumford High School.
University of Texas.
Kelly Elementary School.
Marinette High School.
Aurora Central High School.
Millard South High School.
Martinsville West Middle School.
Worthing High School.
Millard South High School.
Highlands Intermediate School.
Cape Fear High School.
Chardon High School.
Episcopal School of Jacksonville.
Oikos University.
Hamilton High School.
Perry Hall School.
Normal Community High School.
University of South Alabama.
Banner Academy South.
University of Southern California.
Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Apostolic Revival Center Christian School.
Taft Union High School.
Osborn High School.
Stevens Institute of Business and Arts.
Hazard Community and Technical College.
Chicago State University.
Lone Star College-North.
Cesar Chavez High School.
Price Middle School.
University of Central Florida.
New River Community College.
Grambling State University.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School.
Ronald E. McNair Discovery Academy.
North Panola High School.
Carver High School.
Agape Christian Academy.
Sparks Middle School.
North Carolina A&T State University.
Stephenson High School.
Brashear High School.
West Orange High School.
Arapahoe High School.
Edison High School.
Liberty Technology Magnet High School.
Hillhouse High School.
Berrendo Middle School.
Purdue University.
South Carolina State University.
Los Angeles Valley College.
Charles F. Brush High School.
University of Southern California.
Georgia Regents University.
Academy of Knowledge Preschool.
Benjamin Banneker High School.
D. H. Conley High School.
East English Village Preparatory Academy.
Paine College.
Georgia Gwinnett College.
John F. Kennedy High School.
Seattle Pacific University.
Reynolds High School.
Indiana State University.
Albemarle High School.
Fern Creek Traditional High School.
Langston Hughes High School.
Marysville Pilchuck High School.
Florida State University.
Miami Carol City High School.
Rogers State University.
Rosemary Anderson High School.
Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
Frederick High School.
Tenaya Middle School.
Bethune-Cookman University.
Pershing Elementary School.
Wayne Community College.
J.B. Martin Middle School.
Southwestern Classical Academy.
Savannah State University.
Harrisburg High School.
Umpqua Community College.
Northern Arizona University.
Texas Southern University.
Tennessee State University.
Winston-Salem State University.
Mojave High School.
Lawrence Central High School.
Franklin High School.
Muskegon Heights High School.
Independence High School.
Madison High School.
Antigo High School.
University of California-Los Angeles.
Jeremiah Burke High School.
Alpine High School.
Townville Elementary School.
Vigor High School.
Linden McKinley STEM Academy.
June Jordan High School for Equity.
Union Middle School.
Mueller Park Junior High School.
West Liberty-Salem High School.
University of Washington.
King City High School.
North Park Elementary School.
North Lake College.
Freeman High School.
Mattoon High School.
Rancho Tehama Elementary School.
Aztec High School.
Wake Forest University.
Italy High School.
NET Charter High School.
Marshall County High School.
Sal Castro Middle School.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
Great Mills High School
Central Michigan University
Huffman High School
Frederick Douglass High School
Forest High School
Highland High School
Dixon High School
Santa Fe High School
Noblesville West Middle School
University of North Carolina Charlotte
STEM School Highlands Ranch
Edgewood High School
Palm Beach Central High School
Providence Career & Technical Academy
Fairley High School (school bus)
Canyon Springs High School
Dennis Intermediate School
Florida International University
Central Elementary School
Cascade Middle School
Davidson High School
Prairie View A & M University
Altascocita High School
Central Academy of Excellence
Cleveland High School
Robert E. Lee High School
Cheyenne South High School
Grambling State University
Blountsville Elementary School
Holmes County, Mississippi (school bus)
Prescott High School
College of the Mainland
Wynbrooke Elementary School
UNC Charlotte
Riverview Florida (school bus)
Second Chance High School
Carman-Ainsworth High School
Williwaw Elementary School
Monroe Clark Middle School
Central Catholic High School
Jeanette High School
Eastern Hills High School
DeAnza High School
Ridgway High School
Reginald F. Lewis High School
Saugus High School
Pleasantville High School
Waukesha South High School
Oshkosh High School
Catholic Academy of New Haven
Bellaire High School
North Crowley High School
McAuliffe Elementary School
South Oak Cliff High School
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Sonora High School
Western Illinois University
Oxford High School
Robb Elementary School
A message to everyone who is against Trump in the U.S,; don't give up.
I understand that statement may seem cliche and useless to many people. But everyone needs to understand the significance it holds.
I am heartbroken about the election results in the United States. But I will not stress how important it is to stay strong, and not give up on our democracy. I won't tell you it's not terrifying.
But we can't stop fighting for the rights of ourselves and others. No matter how hopeless it may seem at the moment, we must work together to maintain democracy in America.
If you feel like it's not worth it to keep trying, think of the genocide against the Palestinians, which will only reach new extremes under Trump's presidency (he has said he wants Netanyahu to be even more aggressive and tough on Palestine than he already is being—sit with that for a moment.) the transgender people who won't receive the affirming care they deserve, the people of color who now have nearly no protections against racism and police brutality, the children who won't have access to the education they need, who won't be protected against rapists and gun violence, the people who will not be able to get abortions no matter how dire their situations are, the legal and illegal immigrants who will be deported, the Ukrainians who will now longer have protection from America against the Russian invasion in their country. And there is so much more, so much more that we won't even see coming.
However, we can still do things to make a difference. Go to protests, educate yourself and others, donate to Palestinians/charities that help Palestinians and other people in need, volunteer at organizations that help women travel to different states to have legal safe abortions, flood your congressmen, representatives, mayors, governors, anyone in our government, with letters and complaints.
Use your voice! Remember, you have free speech no matter how much you are made to feel like you don't.
Now is not the time to worry about hurting anyone's feelings or being annoying. Be a bother. Force everyone who is using their power to ignore you and your rights to notice you.
Don't be scared to aggressive as you fight against the fascism that threatens our country. We cannot and will not allow this nation to slip further into hate, homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, white supremacy, xenophobia, misogyny, and anti immigrant ideology any more than it already has.
We cannot afford to be selfish or weak. Even if your state has voted to add protections for women and trans people in their state constitutions, doesn't mean you're safe. Do you think Trump won't do everything he can do outlaw these rights everywhere eventually? Fight and keep fighting. For everyone.
This may seem dramatic to some. I've heard the argument "Trump won't follow through. He's not being serious. He won't actually try to become a dictator", several times. Wake up! He has presented these intentions time and time again. Take his words at face value. He will strip people of their rights, especially if we actively chose to ignore his clearly communicated intentions. Do not think he won't do everything in his power to pass Project 2025 and other hateful, controlling, unconstitutional policies.
Believe it. But also believe in hope. It's easy to feel alone during this time. Remember, however, that there are millions of people behind you, and we can keep it that way if we remind ourselves and each other that we are fighting together and we will not give in.
No matter what, do not give up on our country and every single citizen that still needs our protection and support.