Divided Again: The Gun Debate

We’re all beside ourselves right now. We can’t even begin to process what has happened in Connecticut. There are so many questions. I can’t imagine a more important question, however, than ‘how do we prevent this from happening again?’…

We’re at such an important crossroads in American culture right now. I wish I weren’t so pessimistic, because I only see one real method of dealing with our problems, and it doesn’t seem likely. I’ll get to that later though.

So, here are the trends we’re becoming known for, more and more: mass killings with semi-automatic weapons, and the supposed abandoning of a long-held ‘you’re on your own’ approach to healthcare.

Oh… What’s that? I’m forgetting something? That’s right… We’re also becoming known for having an absolute joke of a political system, where we have two parties behaving like children that are completely unwilling to compromise.

One of these parties has gone to the extreme right and abandoned its core principles of a government that stays out of our lives and practices fiscal responsibility. It has become a party of religious zealots, in bed with big business and the military-industrial complex, ignorantly falling prey to faux-conservative media-mogul predators who are leading them down a path of idiocy into a hate-filled oblivion.

The other party has cleverly instigated buried levels of class-warfare which crop-dust success with clouds of sinister motives. They have doubled-down on failed social crutches, which under the weight of a greatly increased population are ready to collapse in a way that could bring down the economy of the world.

Now, before you put words in my mouth, understand that I am greatly aware that the actions of both parties have some overlap… it is in no way just one party that is bringing us down. Feel free to argue amongst yourselves which one is doing more damage. Everyone has their own opinion. The problem, though, is the glass houses that each party occupies… they need less windows and more mirrors. They are unwilling to admit fault. They are unwilling to change.

If we want to find out why we can’t stop people from walking into schools, shopping malls, movie theaters, and so on, and opening fire on innocent and precious lives, we don’t need to look at the right of Americans to carry guns. We don’t need to look at the removal of religion from public schools. We need to look at the simple fact that our government has worked very hard to divide us… not by having civil discourse which uses logic and reason to arrive upon a more agreed upon conclusion, but by vilifying and damning those who would believe in a manner unlike their own. People in the opposing party are no longer ‘mistaken’ or ‘wrong’, they are ‘unAmerican’, ‘evil’, ‘socialist’, ‘killers’, and much, much worse. Our politicians have created a culture of sanctioned bullying which pits its citizens against each other, and they’ve done this for the most selfish of reasons…

They don’t want to get fired.

And really, who would in this economy that they’ve created?

They get some pretty cush jobs, too. They get healthcare. They get pensions. They get months of vacation time. Hell, they even get insider trading. And they get the power to give none of that to you.

What else do they get? Well, if they play their cards right and pass the right bills, they get big-paying lobbying jobs with the companies they passed bills for (that also just happened to fund their campaigns) after they leave public office. But they don’t have to leave office. We allow them to do this for as long as they want.

So, how do we keep people who should not have access to firearms from accessing them and committing atrocities? We kick the gun lobbies, the drug companies, the insurance guys… all of the lobbyists… we kick them the hell out of our lawmaking process. We must have campaign finance reform. There is no reason that the fox should draw up the blueprints to the henhouse. Corporations are not people, contrary to what the Supreme Court has said. Corporations can’t lose their lives at the hand of a mentally ill person wielding a weapon. Children can, though. Teachers can. Mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers can.

We have to change the way we elect our leaders and make our laws. The way we do it now doesn’t make any sense at all. It has caught up to us on every front now.

I’ve attempted to make this little opinion-piece editorial I’ve written non-partisan. There are two reasons for this… One, my hope is that people from both major parties can step back and look at this objectively, without immediately attributing the aforementioned partisan labels to me. I don’t belong to either party. I voted for a third party candidate whenever possible in the last election. The other reason is that I don’t fit into either party. I own several guns, one of which is an AR-15. I also believe in nationalized healthcare. I’m socially quite liberal, and fiscally quite conservative. And there are many others out there just like me.

It’s a sad reflection on our society that the murder of six and seven year old children could somehow further divide us. Where is the honor in that? Let’s not allow lobbyists to divide us this time. Let’s recognize that we’re a smart enough people to run this country without them. In my opinion, there could be no better way to honor the children and teachers who perished in this unfathomable tragedy in Connecticut than to not change our laws to accommodate the lobbyists standing atop their soapboxes as you read these lines, but to change the ways our laws are written… of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Take Care-

Matthew S. Hiley