The Gun or the Shooter?

I am sure you would have difficulty finding anyone not touched by the senseless shooting inside the classroom of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Whether you have children, grandchildren, or are just a feeling human being, you probably had difficulty sleeping on Tuesday night. I was choked to tears often as I watched seasoned reporters do the same as they tried to tell what little was known about the tragedy. Many of these folks have been down this road before, and I think it gets more difficult with each occurrence. There have been far too many.

 

There are always more questions than answers whenever there is a mass shooting, especially when the animal who perpetrated the evil act is killed. Except for the unanswered questions, I think the evil monster should never draw a breath of air again. I do not want to hear the feeble excuses or listen to years of testimony and court proceedings as defense attorneys try in vain to get their clients exonerated. There are no valid excuses, and the person deserves to burn in hell.

 

There have been events like the Uvalde shooting that have been extraordinarily difficult to understand. Sandy Hook, Columbine, and Parkland are three that always come to mind. But Uvalde is the 27th school shooting in just the last five months. That fact boggles the mind, but the ages of the children stolen from us this week make this shooting even more devastating to accept. Nineteen innocent souls and two teachers in the prime of their lives were snuffed out by an 18-year-old deranged individual named Salvatore Ramos.

 

I do not want to remember his name, and the images of the 21 dead souls will haunt us for a long time. It was excruciating for the parents who had to pray through the night, not knowing the fate of their missing sons or daughters. They had a sickening feeling of what news awaited them in the morning, but they still prayed for intervention. It did not come, and the death toll rose.

 

Like everything else in today’s world, this calamity took no time to become political and divisive. Depending on which channel you watched, the question still arose. Was it the gun or the shooter who was the villain this day? The President, and most Democrats, immediately called for stricter gun controls and the elimination of “assault” rifles. The term assault is in quotation marks because there is no such gun as an assault weapon. Every gun can be deadly, and each can be used in an assault. But the phrase is key to their argument. It makes it sound more ominous.

 

The Right calls for more attention to mental health evaluation and treatment and the focus on Red Flags that all of these evil people put up before their crimes. Neither side will concede to the other, so the chasm of divisiveness widens.

 

This is such a bogus argument, for the gun is an inanimate piece of metal incapable of carrying out a heinous killing on its own. The blame falls on the person holding the weapon when the bullets are turned into projectiles of death by a finger on the trigger. The type of gun does not matter, but the person who procures and uses the weapon does.

 

We always seem to piece together the puzzle after the fact. We need to invest in ways to uncover these harrowing scenes before they become news. To never hear of a shooting that almost happened would be sad but far less so than the shooting itself. To those of you who still want to point to the weapon, you are wasting time and energy. If you’re going to bridge the divisiveness, band together to make this country more mentally healthy and use the tools we have to hunt down evil before it becomes the only story on 24/7 news stations

 

Don’t point to me as a charlatan pro-life member of the NRA and a Republican whose party has done nothing to solve the problem. I believe in the sanctity of all life from conception to death. I side with the NRA for wise gun laws that protect our Second Amendment but keep the guns away from evil animals and people who want to harm others. And I am a proud member of the Republican Party who supports police, ICE, Border Patrol officers, and the rule of law. I believe in harsh penalties for people who commit crimes and incarceration if necessary to keep evil away from good. I believe that our safety is the number one role of government and that until we find a way to get God and country back into our culture, we will be a damaged society lamenting events like Tuesday’s.