By Miss Kubelik
Will Uvalde be different? Parkland kid and gun safety activist David Hogg thinks so. He's organizing a big rally against gun violence next month in Washington, but right now he's seeing signs that makes him think maybe... maybe... something will get done.
At last night's game, the Miami Heat announcer urged fans to call their Senators and lobby for gun reform (Baby Marco Rubio was very unhappy about that), and today, the New York Yankees issued this statement. Yes, it could be ephemeral, and in a few weeks big sports could revert to "normal." We'll see.
The other reason Uvalde might be different is that it's happened in an election year. Recall that the Sandy Hook massacre took place right after the elections in 2012, and so Congressional Republicans decided they could weasel out of doing anything. This time, since we're six months out from November, you can really smell the GOP's fear. First they tried to claim that the shooter was a transsexual illegal immigrant. Now, they're prattling on about doors. Ted Cruz flounced away from a Sky News interview that he surely thought was going to be friendly. And of course there's Beto.
One more point: There's been more discussion this time about the value of publishing crime-scene photos. We cats have long thought that if such photos were made public, gun reform legislation would pass Congress tomorrow. But how to release them without causing more agony to the families? It's a terrible choice.
At this point, we're leaning toward publication, as nightmarish as that would be. But it's disgusting. Why should Americans only be moved by shocking, graphic images — and not by the mere fact that 19 kids got slaughtered in school this week? Still, we should do what we have to do. We cats HISS.
No comments:
Post a Comment