There's been a great deal written about the collective failure of our elected officials to pass meaningful gun laws that would've prevented many, if not all, of these slaughters. And just for the record, let me be as blunt as I can: these people are contemptible. Their complicity is superseded only by their uselessness. The blood that's on their hands will never wash off.
But there is another actor in this Greek tragedy that has for far too long flown mostly under the radar and escaped Scott free: the voters. Well it is way past time that the gloves came off for that group.
Put succinctly, the level of apathy within the American electorate is staggering. In the 2020 election, 62 percent of all eligible voters cast a ballot, the highest turnout since 1960. By comparison, 92 percent of all eligible Australians voted in the last election. And lest you think that was an outlier, north of the border, 76 percent of all eligible Canadians voted in the 2021 election. Even in the latest French election, which saw Emmanuel Macron win a second term, the 63 percent voter turnout was the lowest that nation has seen in years.
What a contrast. In France, 63 percent voter turnout is cause for concern; in this country, it's cause for celebration. Talk about setting the bar low. That more than a third of U.S. voters don't see fit to even make their voices heard is a national disgrace.
Blaming Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP, however gratifying, isn't going to fix the problem. If your house keeps getting broken into by the same bugler over and over again and you don't change the locks on your doors, it's not the bugler's fault anymore, it's yours. Jimmy Kimmel is right when he says this is now our fault.
It isn't enough to point out that these kinds of massacres don't happen anywhere else in the world; or to be outraged that an 18 year-old who isn't old enough to legally order a beer in a bar can legally purchase an AR-15. Your outrage will not restore the fallen to their families, nor prevent further bloodshed.
Thoughts and prayers may soothed the grief-stricken families for a time, but in the end, they are empty gestures designed to placate the victims and provide cover for those who have grown numb to the carnage. The book of James admonishes such conduct.
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
In this instance, we are not being asked to clothe or feed anyone. Our obligation in this matter is far less onerous. All that is required of us is to get up off our asses and vote. In some parts of the world, just standing in line to vote can cost a person their life. Yet they do it anyway. Why? Because they feel it is their duty, that's why; a duty they are willing to die to preserve.
And what is our excuse? I'm too busy, or all the candidates are the same, or what's the use, nothing will change. It is that sort of twisted rationale that the gun lobby counts on every election cycle to maintain its grip of terror over the nation. Even though it doesn't represent the majority of the American people, it has nothing to fear so long as millions of "outraged" voters do nothing.
According to CNN, there are 120.5 guns for every 100 Americans in this country. That statistic is made even worse when you consider that only 44 percent of American households actually own a gun. The U.S. accounts for roughly 46 percent of the 857 million civilian guns in the world. This should frighten all of us. But instead of frightening us, it seems to have paralyzed us.
America's obsession with guns is beyond bizarre; it's pathological. And the warped interpretation by a conservative Supreme Court of an amendment written centuries ago by men who could never have foreseen the society we have become is directly responsible for the violence being perpetrated upon us.
But there is another form of pathology at work here: indifference. And it has infected a large segment of the population. So much so that the very republic itself hangs precariously in the balance. For years, the vast majority of Americans have consistently said they believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, yet in the last election those very same Americans saw fit to re-elect 94 percent of their congressional representatives and 84 percent of their senators to office. You can't make this shit up.
The dead cry out from the grave for justice. What shall we say to them? Que sera sera? Perhaps if we are honest with ourselves, we would refer back to that famous line from A Few Good Men, the one where Lt. Daniel Kaffee is told by Col. Nathan R. Jessep that he "can't handle the truth."
And the truth we can't handle is that this once grand experiment in representative democracy is dying before our very eyes. But unlike the victims of Robb Elementary School, it is not going out with a bang, but a whimper.
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