Yesterday, I stood in a crowd of inspired, committed, unbowed demonstrators demanding that our spineless, soulless, rudderless legislators finally do something about gun violence in our country, particularly regarding the gruesome trend of mass murders in our schools. My son was one of seventeen students who spoke at a local rally, their ages ranging from 11 to 18, and I couldn’t have been prouder hearing his voice carry over the crowd with cheering and chants of “vote them out!” roaring as he spoke with conviction. And honesty. And very real fear.
“I’m a scared high school Senior,” he admitted. Across the country, and indeed, across the globe, other students, standing in front of an audience of millions, voiced their similar sentiments. When our children are afraid, we’re supposed to listen. When our children are legitimately afraid of their bodies being devastated by a projectile exploding at a rate of 3,200 feet per second from the muzzle of a military grade assault rifle, we’re supposed to do more than listen. We’re supposed to act. That’s what a “great” country would do. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll find out if America can rise to the occasion or not.
I’m worried that it will be “not.”
While my son’s words rang out from a makeshift PA system from the bed of a pickup truck, not 200 feet away, and separated by about a dozen Suffolk County police cars with their lights swirling, another group of “Americans” stood chanting their own competing chants, waving their silly yellow Gadsden flags, holding up signs with silhouettes of AR15s on them with the words “Come and Take It” on them while the student speakers braved the scene.
One of them was an 11-year-old girl.
If there is a better metaphor for the state of American political discourse right now, I don’t know of one. Our children are bravely rising to the occasion and setting an example while the chickenshit gun nuts are on the sidelines pissing their pants that high school and elementary school children might actually make the case that their lives (as in: LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) are more constitutionally important than the impotent, juvenile need for these inbred, flag-waving paramilitary fuckwits to pretend someday they’ll be throwing down in a firefight against a “tyrannical government” in the parking lot of the Port Jefferson Station King Kullen supermarket.
Yeah, because that fear is just as real as our children’s fear of being shot.
First of all, if these gun-loving imbeciles had any ability whatsoever to process reality, they’d see that the United States of America’s government has never been closer to actual tyranny. The brain addled, criminal clown in the White House that they worship is an autocratic wannabe dictator who is trying to undermine congress, the courts, the free press, and indeed the majority of our citizens by being…well, tyrannical, with every word out of his mouth, and every misspelled Tweet from his tiny fingers.
Nah, it isn’t tyranny the gun nuts fear—it’s fucking democracy.
But here’s the thing. That adorable little 11-year-old girl who spoke so heroically at the rally I attended yesterday won’t be eligible to vote until after the 2024 presidential election. And already the NRA, which has made their transition from a self styled protector of civil liberties to a full-blown terrorist organization complete in the last decade, is mobilizing with an annual fundraising effort of $366,000,000 which they’ll use to buy politicians and spread fear. Our votes are the only thing we have as a last line of defense.
Our kids alone can’t make the changes they need made by themselves. And the changes can’t be made while spineless, corrupt morons like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Richard Burr, Roy Blunt, Lee Zeldin, Whom Tillis, Marco Rubio, are still in office. So we adults are going to have to do our part, too. Because right now, we’re still letting the NRA and those who fetishize guns to such a disgusting degree that they would taunt a 6th grader to “come take” their AR15 at a peaceful rally define what being “American” is.
Enough.
It’s time to get off our asses and vote. Bring friends to the ballot box. Energize yourself the way these kids have energized each other, and the country. But remember, nothing changes by staying the same. Every politician that is owned by the NRA must be voted out of office. It’s time to take out the fucking trash. The Blue Wave we are counting on in November isn't coming unless we create it ourselves. So let's do that. The lives and well being of our children depend on it.