By: Prentiss Smith
No, they didn’t fire the weapons that killed 20 young children and six of their teachers at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut, and no they didn’t pull the trigger on the 19 young children and two teachers that were slaughtered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, but they might as well had.

Yes, they have blood on their hands because they have failed to protect the people who elected them. Most Americans support common sense gun measures, but the politicians, mostly Republicans, and some Democrats, are not listening.

Over the past ten years since Sandy Hook, there have been over 4000 mass shootings. Think about that. It is unconscionable, but it is real. Thousands have died, and thousands more have been injured and maimed in mass killings; and yet politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, have refused to do anything to stop this madness.

How many more precious babies are going to have to be slaughtered before Republicans and Democrats decide that enough is enough? How many more families are going to have to get the news that their loved ones have been the victims of a mass shooting or a drive by shooting, or suicide, or a tragic accident with a gun?

How many more victims of gun violence are going to have to be buried because politicians are bowing at the knee of the NRA? How many more young Black men and women are going to have to be gunned down on the streets of major cities in this country before cowardly politicians do what their constituents are literally begging them to do? And that is to enact “common sense” gun legislation that would have undoubtedly saved hundreds of lives over the last decade?

After the Newtown massacre of 20 five and six-year-old elementary students, it was widely thought that politicians would see that something needed to be done about the availability of assault weapons like AR-15’s and AK-47’s, the weapon of choice for so many of these mass killers, but that was not the case.

More of these deadly “weapons of war” were manufactured, marketed, and sold. And make no mistake about it, these cowardly politicians have blood on their hands, and it is undeniable.

Nobody that I know is advocating taking anyone’s gun away from them. That is not what the American people are advocating for, but they are advocating for a ban on assault weapons, implementation of universal background checks, and the enforcing of red flag laws that can identify individuals that should not have weapons. These are reasonable actions that surely can save lives, and if one life is saved because of these actions, then that is a good thing.

Americans love their guns, and that is fine, but the fact of the matter is that there are almost 400 million guns in America, and most of them are owned by law-abiding citizens, who have never committed a crime. Many of them are weekend shooters, target shooters, and just regular gun collectors, but because there are so many guns, they end up in the hands of people who have no business having a weapon.

In the first four months of 2023, there were 146 mass shootings. That is almost one and a half mass shootings a day. Almost 12,000 Americans died in the first three and a half months of this year from gun violence. It is an unbelievable number of people who have lost their lives because our elected leaders have refused to do anything that would stem this dreadful tide that is traumatizing families all over the country.

In America it used to be God, family, and guns in that order. Sadly, that has changed, and the new order is Guns, God, and then family. Religious people whose allegiance should be to their God, have rationalized in their minds that the Second Amendment is sacrosanct, and can’t be altered in any way. That is lunacy. The law was written over 250 years ago, and was never intended to be used the way it has been interpreted by politicians.

The sad truth is that Americans have become desensitized to the daily body count. Many of them wake up every morning hoping that there has not been another mass shooting.

They have become immune to the pictures of police cruisers and EMT vehicles rushing to another active shooter that is randomly killing fellow citizens with impunity. The Doctors, Nurses, and other medical personnel have seen too much, and are dealing with the mental anguish and weariness that this gun violence has set up on society.

After this massacre, politicians failed to take any actions, and the carnage continues. No, these politicians didn’t pull triggers in these mass killings, but they have blood on their hands, and it is undeniable. And that’s my take. smithpren@aol.com