When It Comes To Guns, We Want The Moon AND The Stars

via GIPHY

By Miss Kubelik

"What would happen," Marjory Stoneman Douglas student David Hogg wondered in a tweet, "if we treated every school shooting like an airplane crash with huge investigations and changes made to prevent others from dying?"

What, indeed? We cats think that's a great idea. In fact, we'd like to propose that until our nation can somehow wriggle out of the pernicious grasp of the NRA, it should create an NTSB for mass shootings.

Yep, just for mass shootings. It would take some of the pressure off the violent crime guys over at the FBI — something we're sure the Trumpsters would support since they're so worried about gangs like MS-13. And it would be great. Our proposed National Gun Safety Board (NGSB) would swoop in immediately to collect evidence, interview survivors and, later, testify to Congress about how banning the weapons involved would have saved X number of lives. We like it.

Seriously, though: In the wake of the Parkland shooting, can we as a society finally make guns as socially unacceptable as we've made cigarettes and drunk driving?

Can we put warning labels on them? Add anti-gun materials to health class curricula in public schools? Run commercials about how having a gun in the house increases your risk of violent death? And — big question here — can Hollywood stop glamorizing the gun the same way it's (pretty much) stopped glamorizing smoking?

Lots of ideas to consider. Maybe we can act on them after the Democrats take Congress back. In the meantime, we can ask the Parkland kids what they think, since that tends to drive Republicans right up the wall. We cats PURR.