'What are we doing?'

After the slaughter of innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, 10 years ago, I really, really, really thought we had a chance to nudge Congress over the tipping point and into some common sense gun control in this country.

Surely, the murder of 20 elementary school students – 5 and 6 year olds – in December of 2012 was heinous enough to dropkick our representatives into legislative action. Perhaps a ban on semiautomatic assault rifles. Maybe a ban on multi-round magazines. Or universal background checks. Or red flag laws, at the very least.

I felt the momentum building. It's what 80 percent of the nation wanted then...and still wants.

But there was both a hypocritical and an immoral resistance within nearly all of the Republican caucus, which eternally appears to be beholden to gun lobbyists as well as to the astonishingly corrupt National Rifle Association. So instead of legislation, we got crickets along with their thoughts and prayers.

Now, almost 10 years and 900 mass shootings later, there's Uvalde TX. Another elementary school. Nineteen dead third and fourth graders. Two teachers.

And, so far, the Republican crickets are still chirping. It's sickening.

I am so tired of this. According to The New York Times, there have been 101 mass shootings in this country (A mass shooting is usually defined by various agencies as at least four persons killed or wounded in a single episode) in the years between 1998 and 2019 among developed nations. The next country on the list, France, had eight mass shootings in that span. Eight mass shootings in 21 years. Eight.

That unbelievable disparity between the United States and the rest of the world automatically eliminates mental illness and first-person shooter video games as underlying causes for this carnage. Mental illness and video games clearly exist outside the borders of the United States, yet the slaughter does not. Mental illness is a bullshit Republican talking point and nothing more as the bodies of dead children pile up around those GOP feet.

Mental illness is not the problem. The ease of gun availability is. What do you think is going to happen when 330 million people are armed with 400 million guns? What do you think is going to happen when an 18-year-old can purchase an AR-15 and over a 1,000 rounds of ammunition?

Time and again gun control and gun safety legislation brought to the floor of Congress has been obstructed by Republicans. There is currently pending a bipartisan bill, HR8, that passed the House of Representatives in 2019 and again in 2021, that will expand background checks. It has yet to be voted upon by the Senate, which needs 60 votes – and perhaps at least 10 Republican senators – to pass. So what's the problem here, Mitch? Not enough dead kids yet? This is how you represent the will of 80 percent of the voters? Shame on you. Please explain your obstruction, because right now, this is rule by the minority as our democracy wobbles.

Another example is the Federal Assault Weapons ban, ratified in 1994 but which expired after 10 years in 2004 (because of a sunset clause) as attempts to renew or replace the bill never got out of committee. Consequently, mass shootings have increased threefold since it expired – a time span that includes Sandy Hook and Parkland. We had it in our hands, it worked, and we let it go.

You can also follow the money to help decipher this reluctance to save ourselves from semiautomatic weapons fire. Many politicians (think Republicans) don't want to jeopardize losing the millions of dollars in contributions they receive from the NRA, gun lobbyists and their constituents, so there's that.

And, in a capitalistic society, gun manufacturers don't want to jeopardize their incredible profit margins by supporting gun control measures. Gun purchases seem to increase after every mass shooting because gun buyers think (incorrectly) they will lose their Second Amendment right to bear arms (which is also a misinterpretation of the original intent of the Founders, who never envisioned semiautomatic weapons in the first place. If you can figure out why the words "well-regulated Militia" are in that 1791 Bill of Rights amendment, then you're on your way). You can thank the NRA for its powerful moves of misdirection to influence our continuing gun culture.

Meanwhile, crickets chirp and children die. The Uvalde tragedy is the eighth mass shooting in Texas alone since 2009. More than 550 children have been killed in school shootings nationwide since Columbine (1999). How hard is it to connect those dots?

I personally don't have an issue with the Second Amendment, but I don't understand the need for a civilian to own a military-style AR-15 semiautomatic rifle that has one purpose, and one purpose only: to kill human beings. The AR-15 was designed as a weapon of war.

I am just so tired of this. I'm tired of teachers having to use their bodies to shield students from the spray of high velocity bullets; I'm tired of kids calling 911 for help while their lives pass before them; I'm tired of children pretending they're shot by smearing the blood of their dead classmates on themselves to deceive the shooter in the room; I'm tired that we can't figure out our national catastrophe when common sense legislation is within our reach.

I'm tired of Republican excuses that don't seriously address the issue. Hardening our schools only turns them into prisons and fire traps; the NRA-inspired idea of good men with guns certainly didn't work out in Uvalde as those good men – those law enforcement officers – hesitated for 40 minutes at the point of breach while babies bled out; and the idea of arming teachers in the classroom is so obviously insane that it needs no comment.

I especially don't want to hear from pro-lifers screaming about abortion as children killed from gunfire lie bleeding on schoolroom floors. That argument just doesn't fly anymore. If Roe v. Wade is reversed in the next month or so, women's bodies will be more regulated than guns, and guns will have more protections than women – or children.

As Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) passionately asked his colleagues on the floor of the Senate on the day of the shootings, "What are we doing?"

Right now, I'm sensing a feeling in this country that most people are seriously pissed off and have had enough, especially as it comes just days after the racially-motivated mass shooting of grandmothers in a grocery store in Buffalo, NY. I sense a growing groundswell to the outrage, and I really, really, really think this time that we have a chance for passing sensible gun control.

Or not. We've been here before. We've been here too many times.