I’ve been thinking about the recent shootings in [INSERT LATEST U.S. CITY/SCHOOL/CHURCH HERE], and the blow-back by lobbyists like the NRA. Especially the NRA, and all who support it or are bought by it. The Second Amendment is often cited as a “clobber verse,” a phrase that comes from Christian apologetics for when a Bible verse is supposed to utterly decimate an argument against it. They are most often used against gay people.
Anyway, growing up, it took a long time for me to realize that there were people who claimed to be pro-life, but also believed the myth that there were some lives worth more than others. Poor people, for example, had less value than rich people, because rich people provided jobs and income. White men, too, were worth more than women, and colored people, because white men were ordained by God to go forth and conquer the nations in order to bring enlightenment to the savage.
Over time, the focus shifted, but the originator remained the same. It was always white men declaring their special status, and that everything they did was for the good of all humanity. So children being forced to work in mines, in factories, this was acceptable because white men knew there was a large pool of human resources from which they could get more cheap labor, and cheap labor was important in order to keep business expenses down. Maximizing profit in order to enrich other white men was seen as the pinnacle of civilization, and also ordained by God.
That mindset still lives on now, in calls for keeping tradition, a return to not only when white men held all of the power, but when they were unquestioningly followed, that they were ordained by God. This is what they seek, but more than this, they want modern society to acknowledge them as such. To that end, the deaths of several dozen children do not matter much at all, because they are acceptable losses. Their lives do not equal the life of one rich white man, let alone an entire organization of them that seeks to regain and solidify their power once more.
The children who live in impoverished countries and work in sweat shops for pennies a day? Who die from exhaustion, malnutrition, dehydration? They do not matter to the CEO of a corporation. Corporations are the ultimate white men, because they behave as rich white men have for the past 500 years: they extol their virtues, that they bring civilization, and prosperity, when in truth they only bring that which they can steal and exploit, to line their pockets while denying the barest scrap to someone in dire need. Then they blame the poor for not trusting them, and move on to greener pastures, having raped the land and exploited its life.
So if you think that rich white men in government are going to start suddenly caring about a bunch of people shot by a man with a weapon that is used for so much more than hunting or target shooting, then you are mistaken. It will always be too soon to talk about, and before it becomes the right time, another tragedy will have happened, and it will be too soon once more. Corporations tied to the gun lobby and gun manufacturers will still profit from the surge in sales after each mass shooting, mothers and fathers will still grieve the pointless loss of their sons and daughters, and nothing will be done in the halls of congress except more thoughts and prayers. Useless thoughts and prayers from a useless government.
This is a tradition that needs to be broken.