Artwork by Michael DiMilo
By Geoffrey Carter
It happened again. Despite the thoughts and prayers, the demonstrations, the pleas, and the warning signs, it happened again. On May 24th, nineteen fourth graders were shot down like dogs at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, by an eighteen-year-old armed with semi-automatic weapons that he had purchased just days after his eighteenth birthday—a mere week before the shootings. Two teachers trying to protect their students were also murdered by this gunman.
Just imagining the terror these children went through in the last few moments of their lives is horrifying. And it’s happened before—at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and—on a smaller scale—in dozens of other schools. How much more of these abominations do we have to endure before something is finally done to prevent these mass shootings? What will it take to get stricter laws passed, action taken, or guns taken off the streets? What will be the monumental straw that breaks this camel’s back?
It’s not the American people who are unmoved. In recent polls, nearly ninety percent of those polled want to see mandatory background checks for prospective gun buyers. Quinnipiac Poll. Around sixty percent want an assault weapon ban, and roughly the same amount polled want to limit extended magazines for firearms Quinnipiac.
Most people want change; they want sensible gun laws. The holdup is in the U.S. Senate, where House Bill H.R. 127 , a series of proposed gun reforms, has been languishing for over a year. The Republican leadership refuses to move on it, and it’s no surprise that these representatives of “the people” are beholden to the N.R.A. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, Ron Johnson, and Josh Hawley are just a few members of this bloody coalition. They refuse to move on this issue. What will it take to change their minds? What will be their last straw?
Many thought the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook would be the turning point, but no. No federal laws regulating background checks, regulating AR-15s, or extended ammunition magazines were passed. These senators, most of them fathers, mothers, and grandparents themselves, refused to pass even the very popular gun reforms.
If the images of tiny body bags being carried out of elementary schools aren’t enough to change these stone hearts and calcified minds, maybe the weight of sheer numbers might help. According to Pew Research, Pew Research, 45,222 people died as a result of gun violence in the United States in 2020. Of course, that’s only a drop in the bucket when compared to the million Americans who died from Covid during that time, but that is still enough bullet-riddled bodies to nearly fill Yankee Stadium. Republican members of the Senate followed President Trump’s lead in reviling the C.D.C and mocking Dr. Anthony Fauci, no doubt resulting in more deaths. So, since the Covid numbers didn’t really faze these guys, why would we think a mere 45,000 bodies would?
What about the memorials for the young victims? Smiling fourth graders holding up certificates and plaques or wearing flowered tiaras would surely pluck at the heartstrings of these senators who have consistently failed to defend these children—and millions of others like them across the country—from any lunatic or malcontent who wants to buy a semi-automatic weapon, ammunition, extended magazine, body armor, and—oh, yeah, throw in the laser sights. Oh—and don’t forget handguns. But these images of innocent victims seem to have done nothing.
In fact, the Republican leadership seem to have willfully turned their backs on these children and their families. Only a few days after this latest massacre, the NRA held its annual convention in Houston, only 300 miles away from the Uvalde massacre. According to NPR, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and former president Trump spoke in defense of American gun rights, maintaining that new policy should focus on school security including metal detectors and fences (even though Trump’s wall didn’t work out so well). Texas Governor Greg Abbott canceled his appearance but appeared on a pre-recorded tape. All these “leaders” maintained that these twenty-one deaths were not their fault. They put it all on the extremely well-armed eighteen-year-old killer, ignoring the fact that if he had come into the school with one handgun or a knife, many children would still be alive today.
What’s it going to take? Perhaps if images of maimed and mangled bodies were shown to the public, it might create enough of a backlash to force these recalcitrant politicians into action. We are a visual society. TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram are far more popular than online news articles and Op-ed pieces. A visual depiction of the carnage might be the last straw for many people.
After all, wasn’t it the images of emaciated survivors and the bulldozing of hundreds of corpses into mass graves in the Nazi concentration camps that motivated global outrage resulting in the Nuremberg trials? But maybe this wouldn’t be enough, either. The all-too-recent images of refrigerated semis parked as temporary morgues in hospital parking lots and of mass graves dug in New York City during the height of the pandemic seemed to do little.
What will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? These Republican senators who are holding out on necessary and appropriate gun reform have not been moved by the grief, the outrage, the shame, or the moral bankruptcy of their positions. They blame mental health issues, school security, the lack of moral standards in our society, and even Critical Race Theory—in short, everything except the gun manufacturers—or themselves. They propose policies like manning every school in the nation with armed police or even—absurdly—arming teachers.
God forbid we see more children die, but we probably will. It may be that the fifty or so politicians who refuse to protect us will have to have their own lives touched by tragedy before taking action. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that point.
A more realistic and immediate solution might be to keep the American voter’s attention long enough for them to elect representatives who actually give a damn about the lives of children—or anyone else besides themselves and their bank accounts.