Dear Democratic National Committee:
As a registered Democrat, I recently received in the mail the DNC’s official 2019 Democratic Party Survey. I was more than happy to take a couple of minutes to check off and rank what I think should be key political priorities from the DNC’s various lists. I am referring to categories and concerns that included: taxing the wealthy; reducing taxes on the middle class; Russian aggression in world affairs; Trump’s recklessness; climate change; job creation; saving Social Security; saving public education; college affordability; affordable healthcare and prescriptions; women’s rights; immigration; terrorism; and restoring U.S. cooperation with and leadership and support of NATO and other nations with whom we once had been friendly and trusting allies.
But I was surprised to discover the number one issue for me apparently is not a prominent concern with the DNC. I am referring to gun control. Among a plethora of subtopics, including a repeated chance to select a choice along the lines of ‘I don’t have any problem with the Republican Party objectives,’ gun control was listed only ONE time. It was included in a list of the responder’s personal objectives. So I marked it yet was only allowed that one time, this my number one concern in America today.
I cannot believe my lifelong political party—the bleeding-heart liberal, altruistic, pacifist, promoters of the 1st Amendment, proud card-carrying members of the American Civil Liberties Union—would play down our nation’s obvious crucial Number One problem: continuous mass shootings that terrorize the minds of every single school kid and many if not most others who live and work in this great nation. Gun control must be one of the Top Three issues Democrats address for urgent solutions and reform.
Instead, the DNC topics left me with the impression the Democratic Party is shying away from gun control. Perhaps the two words leave a bad taste in the mouth of politicians these days. We have yet to speak near as loudly as the adamant, brazen and emphatic other party/ies who reiterate to constituents any gun control is against the 2nd Amendment. Because the DNC listed gun control only once for selecting, I assume this issue is not going to be a priority for the 2020 presidential election. Why not? Why the hell not?
Pacifists and ostriches
Are Democratic leaders unwilling to once again take up the hot-button issue of gun control nationwide? The DNC survey should make clear how serious gun control is among Americans who think liberally instead of conservatively, and I bet even those who think moderately. Mass shootings are a daily tragedy in this country. It’s as if we all are living in a war zone. The reason is obvious: what used to be illegal, military-style assault rifles—the type that sprays bullets to kill large numbers of humanity in seconds flat. And in my America, that is exactly what happens every day, a mass shooting somewhere, only the most extraordinary gaining national media attention.
For the record let me say to the younger generations, it used to not be this way, and as you already know it doesn’t have to stay this way or get worse. Gun control has been a controversial issue as long as I can remember, going back to TV’s “Donahue” and “Lou Grant.” In 1980 an editorial cartoon depicted a handgun and a packet of saccharine with two lines that read “One of these killed 34,000 people last year in America, the other a few rats in a laboratory. Guess which one was banned?” There was a little headway in curbing handguns, our most pressing cause of shooting deaths and disabilities back then, by mandatory background checks and three-day waiting periods. Opponents rightfully pointed out criminals get guns any way possible and avoid government interference.
Through the decades, the gun lobby was blamed for America’s proliferation of guns, which has culminated in the adage ‘Americans have more guns than people: three for every woman, man and child.’ But in reality the National Rifle Association’s Washington, D.C., lobby dollars are small potatoes compared with megabucks from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and big pharma. But I wonder if the NRA’s financial downturn is in any way caused by constant mass shootings, each year tens of thousands killed and disfigured. Among our many rights in America is the right to sue anyone any time for any reason. That is worth remembering in resolving political controversies, and usually it is the reason anything gets resolved legislatively.
It’s not the gun lobby that has created a nation with a number of psycho mass shooters. Blame could be placed on parenting and neglect; crowded public schools where bullies seem the heroes; our free society of uncensored media including over-the-top grotesque horror and violent movies and computer games that by now a couple of generations have played to superiority. When the objective of most computer games is to shoot and kill as many people-like animated characters as possible, how could the rush from winning time and again not warp a human’s psyche? It’s fast-paced action; one sole focus; requiring a bit of hostility; power-inducing; lots of practice shooting; and not a moment to humanize anybody, real or animated, on the computer screen.
It was called desensitizing. But that’s a term from the ’90s after everyone tried to understand Columbine. Ever since, we’ve been reliving it somewhere in America, every day with most of us only aware of the few times the horror makes the national news: another mass shooting at bars, a synagogue, churches, high schools, elementary schools, mega stores, malls, country music concert, movie theaters, political rally, congressional baseball practice, or employee Christmas party.
Now a military weapon being used on American streets is called the flamethrower, like the kind of weapon North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reportedly ordered to execute a former ally. It seems a bullet-riddled body is no longer horrific enough, doesn’t leave the world to fully comprehend consummate power by a totalitarian leader so that all tremble in fear. The flamethrower is popular in computer games and movies. The enemy is no longer shot to death but torched.
Power to the people
In closing, I appreciate the DNC allowing me to rank your listed political issues for the coming storm of the 2020 presidential election. Perhaps I’ve digressed, maybe with a flair for the dramatic. You know our people tend to be soft at heart, easily persuaded to sympathy and sentimentality … yet also to reason and common sense for the common good. If we’re to get tough with the ultimate American bully, then I say hit ’im with gun control. This issue remains our nation’s worst and most horrible and unnecessary escalating problem. Say this over and over again: Folks, we gotta have common sense gun control. This is perpetual mass murder we’re talking about. We have to deal with it now. And let the people know there are solutions, compromises whereby 2nd-Amenders and gun-controllers give and take.
Maybe I’ve come across as naïve, although I’ve lived all my life in gun-toting Texas yet may not realize the deep emotional attachment my fellow Americans have to their guns. After all, these are people who will never relinquish their guns and proclaim, “You can take it from my cold dead hands!!” How can we who prefer some kind of logical gun control counter that kind of fervor, whether it’s from thirty percent or half the country? When it comes to ending mass shootings by military-style assault rifles, I’d rather be on the side of the angels than give up the fight to the cynical opposition whose only response is “America: Love it or leave it.”
Sincerely,
The Texas Tart