Last year my family and I relocated back home to Australia after living in the United States for five years. The rights stripped from women in the Roe Vs Wade decision had gutted me but many other things had devastated me in my time there.
The glaring disparity of wealth for one. I would walk past wedding designer shops in LA that sold dresses starting at $20,000, while unhoused people slept out front with everything they owned in a large garbage bag. I empathised with the distrusting and worn-down essential workers scanning groceries with hollowed eyes. I witnessed thousands of people aimlessly wandering crowded streets in need of both physical and mental support while the vast majority looked away. But nothing was more soul destroying than watching a country allow its children to be slaughtered on a daily basis by a small percentage of people who hold firm to their right to bear arms without consequence.
There have been over 130 mass shootings in the US this year. In schools alone, there have been 74 children or adults killed or injured by guns. JUST. THIS. YEAR. And it’s only March! On Tuesday, a gunman walked into a school in Nashville and committed yet another atrocity, killing three nine years olds, three adults and forever changing the trajectory of hundreds of lives. Once again causing millions of parents across the world to weep for this senseless waste of tiny souls. Once again forcing parents in the US to hug their children just a little bit tighter at school drop off the next day. And once again causing politicians to grandstand and scream into an endless void that never leads to any real or practical change.
Listen to The Quicky, Mamamia's daily news podcast. Post continues below.
As a primary school teacher for over 20 years, I was fortunate enough to homeschool my children when we lived in the US. Sending them to a school in America was never an option in our minds. I never had to experience that fear of dropping them to the school gate and wondering if it would be the last time I would see them. Wondering if today would be the day they died a terrifying death at the hands of a mentally unwell person with legal access to weapons of mass destruction. But I did experience fear.
Top Comments
My overview is that the far-right has been able to con the low-information members of western society by convincing them that life is bad and getting worse.
That "they" on the left side of politics are out of control, too educated to be trusted and are "coming for your guns".
In a society that's unable to grasp that the power of guns has changed dramatically in 200 hundred years - gun-control has become a fearful prospect.
My answer is
"They're not coming for your guns you idiots - they're coming for your weapons of mass-destruction."