Now Is The Time
As President Trump and Congress say it’s “too soon” to discuss policy changes after Sunday’s shooting in Sutherland Springs, I struggle to wrap my head around “why.”
When mass shootings take place in the United States, we hear a common refrain from many corners of the political spectrum:
“Now isn’t the time to politicize this.”
One month ago, we saw Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas use bump stocks to annihilate 58 concertgoers looking for a fun escape on a Sunday night.
The response? “There’s a time and a place for a political debate.”
Sure, there were rumblings from the National Rifle Association and members of Congress they would look into legislating bump stocks, but one month later such law has never materialized. The “political debate” ultimately never came to pass, and then Devin Patrick Kelley took the lives of 26 worshippers, ranging from ages five to 72, at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
“Now isn’t the time to politicize this,” they say. I used to say this, too; on its surface, it seems like an appropriate courtesy to offer families and loved ones time to grieve. After all, we weren’t there, so why should we chime in?
But this rings more hollow after every mass killing. The same President who commonly leans on this response was quick to call for the death penalty and removal of due process for Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan who drove a truck into pedestrians in Manhattan last week that killed eight people.
In hours, President Donald Trump wasted no time politicizing that tragedy.
Perhaps to the chagrin of the GOP he aligns with, Trump has a knack for punching holes into long-established talking points and spin with his flippant, chaotic approach to governing. It has never been more clear that traditional GOP spin isn’t to preserve discourse among us, but rather to delay inevitable, difficult conversations about brutal tragedies that are now coming to define us as a culture. As Americans.
The common denominator of a majority of these tragedies? Guns. Manhattan was an exception, not a rule, and the response from our nation’s leadership to that one should absolutely be noted and questioned against other tragedies.
It’s in the GOP’s best interest to protect the Second Amendment, as the NRA carries a significant amount of clout among members in Congress which, in turn, trickles down to the party’s base. The NRA is aware of its influence and has certainly showed no remorse in politicizing other gun tragedies, primarily the rising death toll in Chicago.
That’s part of a pattern that’s becoming more disturbingly obvious: when a person of color — like Saipov — commits a devastating act of terror, response is swift and strong. When a white man — like Kelley — commits a devastating act of terror, we often hear phrases like, “now isn’t the time to politicize this.”
I’m not the only one to notice and make this point. I’m actually late to the game; Philip Bump of the Washington Post noted President Trump’s inconsistency (or perhaps, his unfortunate consistency) in his responses to American tragedies in June after Jeremy Joseph Christian, a white man, murdered two men in Portland.
Why is the same President — and party — that’s so hellbent on letting dust settle from one shooting by a white man also calling for “smart, vigilant and tough” policy mere hours after a shooting from a person of color, as was the case after San Bernadino?
“Politicization” feels more like a convenient term when the profile of a mass shooter doesn’t fit party narrative, one that attaches terror to “outside” people of color and one that evidence constantly proves is incorrect. It’s a narrative that since 9/11 becomes more and more flawed and dangerous over time.
Avoiding “politicization” of a mass shooting isn’t the only GOP narrative that’s starting to crumble under the President’s words; following Sunday’s shooting in Texas, Trump said the following while on his visit to Asia:
“Mental health is your problem here,” said Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal. “This isn’t a guns situation,” he added. He said based on preliminary reports, the shooter was a “very deranged individual.”
The “mental health” response, a subject matter so dense and broad nobody really has the time or energy to start a discussion. Plus on its surface, it doesn’t necessarily sound incorrect; I think we can collectively agree that anyone who takes a gun into a church for a mass killing is a “very deranged individual.”
Here is a perfect opportunity for the GOP, who have been fervently trying — and failing — to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. If “mental health” is really, truly the root problem here, that would be addressed in their new, improved proposals.
Right? Wrong. From The Atlantic:
The American Health Care Act’s (AHCA) provisions to sunset the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and discontinue enhanced funding for able-bodied low-income adults would remove critical mental-health funding for those enrollees. But even for those who remained eligible for Medicaid, the bill would also create per-capita caps on funding, and establish state-optional block grants that would constrain the overall per-person funding per state — which is currently open-ended. The block grants would also cap the number of people who could enroll in a state, and would allow states flexibility to skirt parity rules and create more barriers to mental-health care for enrollees.
It’s awfully telling that the one counter-argument to prevent further legislation on guns doesn’t seem to matter a whole lot to the GOP, either. It works, and people aren’t going to go overboard reading the details of how the AHCA or any other health plan will affect their mental health services. It’s time-consuming, and it isn’t sexy. So why should the party make a more concerted effort to help individuals with mental illness?
This only worsens the stigma around mental health, equating those who suffer illnesses like anxiety with the “very deranged” individuals who commit Sunday’s mass shooting.
I suffer from mental illness. I have anxiety, depression, poor impulse control (with food and money, mainly) and occasional paranoia. I take Lexapro and it helps a lot. Do I, with mental illness, feel compelled in any way, shape or form to shoot up a place of worship where people are trying to find peace?
You know the answer to that.
Trump and the GOP had the chance to put their money where their rhetoric was and bolster funding and services for those suffering from mental health issues. They didn’t. So now we’re at a crossroads: it’s too soon to discuss sound, reasonable legislation on guns that could prevent what happened in Sutherland Springs, but the GOP also doesn’t seem to have much desire to address what to them is the actual problem, which is mental health.
A hallway of dead kids in Sandy Hook five years ago didn’t bring on any action. The shooting in Orlando didn’t, either. And here we are, November 2017, going in the same circles of nothing that, predictably, will lead to nothing.
Now is the time to talk about this.
In the last year, Americans have been forced to endure not one, but the two most significant mass shootings in U.S. history. The death toll between both stands currently at 109. That’s merely two shootings. In a year.
I don’t know about you, but I’m burned out and exhausted of seeing more innocent people die when we have the knowledge and ability to fix things. The apathy at the federal level from everyone — Trump, GOP, Democrats — should no longer be acceptable as more Americans are filled with bullets.
We cannot accept “now isn’t the time to talk about this” or “this is a mental health issue” as valid responses to these tragedies anymore. We can’t, because we’re getting murdered in mass quantities, frequently.
I know people who do want to take everyone’s guns away. I hate guns, I don’t understand the culture, but I also know good people who own guns. To say there’s nothing we can do to prevent this isn’t only wrong, it’s also apathetic.
Why does Devin Patrick Kelley, court-martialed from the Air Force for abusing his wife and child, get to own a gun? Kelly’s not alone here; the most obvious and disturbing pattern among mass shooters is domestic violence. Stephen Paddock had a history with this. So did James Hodgkinson.
Before I offer my thoughts and prayers to the victims of these shootings and wait for the dust to settle, I would like to first ask why so many mass shooters also just so happen to have histories of domestic violence? How, and why, are they trusted with brutal killing machines?
If mental health is truly the issue, why did GOP health care plans make things a lot harder on lower-income individuals who need support services?
Congress and the NRA said they would support legislation against bump stocks after the Vegas shooting. Where is it? Or are we expected to forget that it was discussed?
Of course, it’s impossible to forget these discussions, because we’re seeing murders on an aggressive scale filling news regularly. I often see news teams blamed in part for its coverage, and indeed, we can do better ourselves. It’s also our job to ask questions: why does this keep happening, and why do we see nothing done in response?
If I don’t ask these questions now, they’ll never be addressed. I know this to be true because I’m still waiting to hear answers and solutions after Las Vegas. Or after the shooting at the congressional baseball practice. And I know I won’t get those, either.
The above questions have answers that do not circle back to, “the government is taking all of our guns away.” Contrary to what the NRA tells you, that effort doesn’t exist. You endured eight years of Barack Obama and you still have your guns. As you fought the NRA’s imaginary, narrative-driven battle, we’ve seen a monumental increase in mass shootings.
I should not have to attend a concert and feel the need to know where exits are and whether or not I have a clean break if I hear gunshots. And I do not want to own a gun for my own protection. Inherently I find that to be a weird idea; why should I even have to be worried about this in the first place?
But, that’s the thing. If they’ll shoot up a church, they’ll shoot up your most peaceful place, too. That’s just who we’ve become.
