Not sure what happens next
For days I've been trying to write a post-vacation entry. Part of my hesitance has been trying to clear the backlog of things to do; laundry and gardening have taken precedence, a little housecleaning, some editing and sewing which have been necessary for my mental well-being. Because much of my silence here is related to how relevant is this blog to what is happening in America concerning mass shootings. It seemed inappropriate to start a post about writing fiction when again people have been murdered. What does it matter how hopeful are my novels when guns are so easily accessible and politicians so unwilling to enact the proper safeguards regarding that accessibility.
I grew up on a ranch, my dad hunted deer. Some of those deer heads adorned our living room walls and I never gave that aspect of life a second thought. When I was sixteen my dad's girlfriend took her life with a gun. I don't know what kind, a handgun I assume, but the deer heads remained although my father didn't go hunting as often as previously. When I was thirty-one my twenty-four-year-old brother killed himself, again with a gun. My father rarely talked about those losses, but they made an indelible impression on me; I am staunchly in favor of gun control as you might imagine. Yet today for the first time I considered how the recent raft of mass shootings could be labeled as domestic terrorism. I then Googled mass shootings domestic terrorism, finding the teenager accused in the Buffalo killings has been charged with domestic terrorism, as well as hate crimes, which is wholly appropriate. A few articles posed my query, if mass shootings could be deemed as domestic terrorism. But in my albeit brief search, there wasn't a clanging gong as was suddenly ringing in my head.
On general principal I avoid the news. If something makes it onto Wikipedia's front page, then I know about it. Right now the shooting in Tulsa isn't listed, but again to me, that's domestic terrorism. The shooter could have stalked the doctor who performed his surgery, killing him in solitude. Instead the shooter went to the hospital, causing TERROR, just like the young man who went to Uvalde's elementary school. Again I will qualify my feelings as solely MINE, because not everyone considers that mass shootings are acts of terrorism. But I think they are. And while it won't make a whit of difference in prosecuting a dead person, it will matter if the Buffalo suspect is found guilty. And perhaps, well past my lifetime, mass shootings will happen infrequently because eventually owning an assault rifle or a semi-automatic assault rifle will be viewed as how I consider it; a way to take many lives in a minimal amount of time with the maximum amount of damage and terror inflicted. An assault or semi-automatic assault rifle is thusly named due to the mayhem borne of its use. I have nothing against people who employ guns for target practice or hunters of whatever animal someone can legally shoot. But an assault or semi-automatic assault weapon isn't to kill deer, or in my opinion to defend one's home or self. It's to destroy human beings.
And to openly flaunt a manner in which to take the lives of others feels like terrorism to me.
I can't envision the pain felt by the families of those who have been killed, nor do I wish to experience that agony. Several youngsters call me Grandma; I don't desire to outlive them. Having grown up in a family where guns were prevalent, yet with so much sorrow attached to weapons, I can comprehend others not wanting their rights to be taken away. Yet what about my right, and of those I love, to attend school without fear, go in peace to the store, a hospital, a nightclub, a church? Near the end of my father's life, he asked if I wanted any of the family guns, or did my husband. It took all I had to only say, "No Dad, we don't have any use for weapons." Even with all he had lost, my father was still an avid gun-lover. And with this post, I'm not trying or hoping to change hearts and minds, I'm merely posing a question. Like I said above, this situation won't alter in my lifetime. But perhaps someday this nation's obsession with bearing arms will lessen. I don't know how many Americans will have to die and how many countless others will endure those premature passings to change attitudes and laws. But to think the status quo will remain is defeatist. I will continue to write novels promoting love and respect for all. And I will keep praying for those hurting due to gun violence and those who perpetrate it in all forms, either by firing the actual weapon or permitting what I see as domestic terrorism.
