#gunsafetynow

What the fuck are police trained to do? Eat fucking donuts and run intersections at high speeds with no lights on? Because that's what they seem to be doing lately.

You're telling me that sending a squadron of heavily armed and armored trained police officers into an enclosed space with a loud-mouthed kid would end up worse for the police? We've seen what happens when cops go into a place with armed lunatics. The lunatics die and innocent people who aren't killing other humans get to live.

I’ve noticed over the years that when a white person kills a lot of people with the aid of guns, we are told that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Usually, the conversation then pivots away from guns to the epidemic of mental health issues in America. In these situations, the gun rights advocates’ response to gun violence often is not punitive, but rather positively identifying a public health issue that contributes to the violence. This demonstrates that gun rights advocates are capable of identifying a societal problem that contributes to mass violence and proposing a solution which neither criminalizes nor punishes communities for gun violence. 

Relatedly–because these conversations sometimes shift to so-called “black-on-black” crime and gun violence–we see a very different reaction when black people commit gun violence in segregated cities. Instead of identifying the deeper societal wounds (centuries-long intergenerational trauma, systemic racism, poverty, lack of services and opportunity, poor wages, etc.) and offering effective sympathetic solutions (investing in communities, providing more services, regionalizing taxation, dare I say reparations) as we have established they can, many of those same gun rights advocates offer different, punitive solutions: namely more police, more surveillance, and more jails. 

In the former scenario, guns aren’t the issue, communities aren’t the issue, gun culture isn’t the issue, but–with sympathy and thoughts and prayers–mental health is the issue we should focus on. As a society, it is our problem to solve, even if it never gets solved. In the latter case, guns are an issue, minority communities and “black culture” are issues, and lacking sympathy, “cracking down” on violence is the issue we should focus on. As a society, it is not our problem; it is “their” problem to solve in the city, and if anyone tries to take funds away from police, we will work hard to get the police their funding back, or get them even more. In other words, action actually gets taken in the second scenario.

Why did I want to share this perspective? Especially for our fellow Americans who struggle to acknowledge the reality of systemic racism, I hope that these two scenarios shed light on its existence and function: how it can permeate conversations and mindsets, political talking points, how we see fellow Americans, what policy solutions are proposed in different situations, who is seen as sympathetic, who is responsible for resolving societal problems, and who is most likely to feel the force of state violence and who gets exceptions made for them. You, kind reader, may not be a racist, and all gun rights activists may not be racists, but it is important to acknowledge that racists and systemic racism play very real and very detrimental roles in our politics, policy, and discourse. And it never hurts to use our privilege to point it out. Short of doing nothing, it’s literally the least we can do.

Thank you for attending my three minute TED Talk!

one of my most prominent memories was in elementary school when the principal came to our room and told us that the drill was over, then, when they opened the door, told us we would be dead if they were a shooter.

they also drilled into our heads to not let students into the classroom under any circumstance because it could be a ploy for a shooter to gain access to a classroom.

they wanted us to abandon a child in the hallway during an active shooter drill, leaving them vulnerable and available to be shot and killed. they told teachers that if they accepted children, they would be held responsible for ‘putting other students in danger’.

i remember my sophomore year of high school, it seemed like there was one in every school in my state except ours, and we would say, ‘i wonder when it’ll be us’. it got to a point where it was so common that we would be like ‘did you hear about that school shooting? that could’ve been us’ as if we were speaking about special guest speakers coming to other schools except ours.

my junior year, someone posted on their snapchat story, ‘don’t come to lunch’. this was right after a mass shooting in another state, so it obviously terrified us. it was reported, and they searched his locker.

lo and behold, they found not one, but two loaded guns in his backpack. then, to make the situation worse, they sent out an email lying to parents and saying they found nothing, and that it was just a hoax.

over half the students, myself included, left that day and didn’t go back the next day either. it caused outrage, and there was a student walk-out that year also.

school shootings have become so normalized and nothing has been done about it. there’s no easy answer for most, and the majority of gun rights activists will come up with any reason against gun control.

but children should not have to live in fear of going to school, which should be a safe place for them to be kids and not worry about life and its constant threats.

something must be done. more children have died at school in 2022 that police officers, which should be a wake up call.

FUCK YOUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS.