The Second Amendment Has Got To Go
Park Forest, IL-(ENEWSPF)- Sophie Calhoun is a 27-year-old artist currently based in Chicago who was inspired to create the #ARTISFORPEACE image above. The piece resonated with me and hopefully speaks to you: this is the world we have created, this world with any guns you want, the world the Supreme Court has permitted in America with its wildly liberal interpretations of the Second Amendment through the years.
Ms. Calhoun says, “I was inspired to draw the piece after seeing David Hogg’s call for art relating to gun violence after the horrific tragedy in Uvalde. Gun reform is something I’m very passionate about, and I’m planning to create more art with this message in the future.”
David Hogg is a mass shooting survivor, one of those who witnessed and lived after the Parkland school shooting in February 2018.
The shooter at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that day was armed with an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle.
An AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle.
That’s insane. No one person should be permitted to carry such a weapon.
The same type of weapon so frightened law enforcement who responded to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that they ran from the shooter even as he continued to shoot, wound, and kill adults and children.
Remember this? From Wayne Lapierre in December 2012, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”
What garbage. The good guys with the best guns were afraid as children were shot to pieces.
Too graphic? Offend your sensitivities?
You might have had to turn away as the video of the pitiful response of the first responders showed edits that the screams of the children were muted.
The screams of the children.
These children.
Now muted forever.
These are the victims of the Tops grocery store shooting last month.
Their names, from left to right in each row, Geraldine Talley, Celestine Chaney, Andre Mackniel, Aaron Salter, Ruth Whitfield, Roberta Drury, Pearl Young, Margus Morrison, Katherine Massey, and Heyward Patterson.
Sit with them for a moment. There they are, in photos provided by family members, with gentle smiles or simply considering the camera.
Now staring back from eternity.
Because the Second Amendment is sacred to some.
Because the Second Amendment is more sacred than these people’s lives or those children shot to death in Uvalde.
We can mute the screams of the children. Is this wildly interpreted Amendment worth their lives or the lives of the next shooting victims?
Enough is enough. The Second Amendment has got to go.
But before that, Congress must act now.
“The vast majority of us want universal background checks, the age to buy an assault rifle raised to 21, have red flag laws and to ban assault weapons,” David Hogg says. The reason these don’t pass? Money in politics, the GOP, and the filibuster.
The time for Congress to act is now.
“The families of recent mass shootings shouldn’t have to be lobbying for an assault weapons ban to pass the house when that should have been done over a year ago,” David says. “Pass the assault weapons ban. Bring it to a vote in the Senate. Show the voters where senators stand.”
And then this, “You want to know why I’m so fucking mad with democratic leadership? Because I’ve just spent a week having to explain to families who lost loved ones in recent mass shootings why Dems- having over a year – haven’t passed an assault weapons ban in the house. Yeah I’m fucking mad.”
And I’m fucking sad, in my classroom, prepared.
We have a lot of work to do.
Many lives to save.
Gary Kopycinski is the Editor and Publisher of eNews Park Forest. His views are his own.
