Our Politicians Are Failing Us, What Can We Do About It?
We’ve had another horrible tragedy at an American school. Kids are dead. Families are broken and suffering unimaginable pain. A Florida community is in agony. The entire United States and its citizens should be in agony with them.
Why did this happen? Why did the killer commit this atrocity? Those questions are for law enforcement to figure out. For the rest of us, those questions don’t serve a purpose. There’s only one question the citizens of our country and the politicians with the power to make laws should worry about: How do we stop this from happening?
- an outright ban on all assault weapons
- criminal background checks every time a person wants to buy a gun
- mental health background checks every time a person wants to buy a gun
How’s that for a start? But that’s only a start. There’s much more that can be done, but these immediate first steps must be taken as soon as possible.
If a politician focuses only on mental health issues and not guns, vote them the fuck out of office. That politician is complicit every time a mass shooting happens. That politician’s inaction allowed an unstable person to buy a weapon designed to kill dozens of people. That politician promised to uphold and further the citizens’ interests, but they’re upholding and furthering the profits and interests of the entities that own him or her (NRA, oil industry, etc.).
Do you want to see which politicians are allowing these mass shootings to happen while doing absolutely nothing? Start by looking at this spreadsheet by OpenSecrets.
The top seventy-nine politicians on the list are Republicans (at the time of this writing). Why am I not surprised? A Democrat makes the list at eighty. There’s seventy-nine politicians on the NRA payroll before a Democrat makes the cut. There is no gray area here. These Republican politicians that take NRA money are complicit every time a mass shooting occurs. They are responsible through inaction, but they blame the tragedies on mental health because their owners tell them to; and they do nothing to stop future tragedies because their owners order them to read from the script they’ve been provided like good, obedient puppets. They must be voted out!
It doesn’t take a genius to know that the average citizen shouldn’t have access to military grade weapons. Assault rifles, silencers, bump stocks, etc. should all be banned outright. And if a person wants to buy a handgun, hunting rifle, or shotgun, they must go through the most thorough criminal and mental health background checks imaginable.
If you agree with the Republicans that it’s only a mental health issue and not a gun issue, will you feel the same way if your life or a loved one is affected by a mass shooting? Mass shootings are no longer rare events. How will you feel when a loved one dies because a person can go to a gun seller and buy an AR-15 with as many bullets as he wants? Will you get angry and demand action from your politicians, or will you continue to feel as if guns have nothing to do with it?
Get angry now.
What happens when the government is no longer serving the interests of its citizens? If we can no longer rely on government and politicians to do what must be done, what must we, the People, do? We Vote! When all else fails we, the People, must vote. And if the next wave of politicians fail us, we, the People, must vote again. And we keep voting and voting, keeping the good politicians that serve the citizenry while tossing out the bad politicians that serve the corporations and other money interests. We must vote and vote until most of our politicians work for the citizens of America, not the corporations.
If we, the People, fail to achieve change with the power of our vote, then we no longer deserve to be called the United States of America that gave the world the Bill of Rights and the American Constitution. We will become another failed state, robbed and corrupted by the by the politicians we put into power.
There are no saviors. It is up to us, the People, to change things with the power of our vote. This November, get angry and vote! If you have a hard time getting angry, then how about looking at the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The politicians that refuse to act, the ones that are bought by the NRA and other money interests are complicit in their deaths, and you have the power to change that.
Imagine the kids that died as your kids. If that does nothing then imagine your kids being the victims of the next mass shooting. Angry yet? Vote this November for the politicians that will serve us, the People. If you don’t, then you’re as complicit as the corrupt politicians that do nothing to fix the problems afflicting our society.
