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The horrific attack at Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina has opened the debate about gun control -- yet again. What will be different this time? Well, a provocative image by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America could change the conversation. Are we moms daring enough to imagine a future without mass shootings?
Over Father's Day weekend Moms Demand Action posted this image under the hashtag #gunsense.
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Happy Father's Day! Are you a dad with #gunsense? Join us! http://t.co/n4UogSsAQspic.twitter.com/BOpxQIKwiy
— Moms Demand Action (@MomsDemand) June 21, 2015Look under that hashtag and you'll see people have strong opinions about the concept of gun sense. Many, like Moms Demand Action, want stricter laws on gun ownership so fewer arms end up in the hands of hate-filled people. Others call "gunsense" a fraud and demand that we stop talking about gun control.
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Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley goes as far as suggesting our lack of gun control is anti-American. He told CNN's Jake Trapper, "It is insane: the number of guns, and the ease of guns in America. It just doesn't fit with the other achievements of this country."
At the same time, a debate has been raging over so-called "gun-free zones." Some gun rights advocates are saying Dylann Roof chose his location partly because he knew guns were not allowed there -- and that if someone in that church had a gun, lives would have been saved. NRA board member Charles Cotton placed the blame directly on the late Senator Clementa Pinkney's opposition to conceal-carry laws.
Eight of his church members, who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church, are dead. Innocent people died because of his political position on the issue.
What a sad world we live in that anyone thinks weapons have any place in a house of worship. Jesus wept! Shouldn't church be a refuge from that?
We are stuck right now. We want a safer world for our children, but we can't agree on how to make that happen. We agree that guns don't belong in the hands of criminals or racist terrorists like Roof. But we lack the moral conviction to demand laws that would actually prevent that.
It doesn't help that the wealthy gun industry keeps buying off Congress members. We STILL cannot get a federal law passed requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales. Why? Because gun violence is great for business. Now that's insane.
Writer and father of two children Adam Gopnik compares our gun violence epidemic to bacterial infections. If we knew there was a simple cure, that antibiotics could save lives, but a faith-healing cult was trying to keep families from using those antibiotics, "every sane person in the city ... would tell the faith healers to go to hell ... and do everything we could to get as much penicillin to the kids as quickly we could."
Well, the solution to our gun violence epidemic is simple, and it is a moral choice.
Those who oppose [gun control] have made a moral choice: that they would rather have gun massacres of children continue rather than surrender whatever idea of freedom or pleasure they find wrapped up in owning guns or seeing guns owned — just as the faith healers would rather watch the children die than accept the reality of scientific medicine.
Parents, we have a lot at stake: Our childrens' lives and the country they inherit. We could be their heroes. We could speak truth to power and wealth and demand change. We could choose our children's future over the profit of a wealthy industry and the few who enjoy its most extreme offerings.
Will we? Or will we keep feeding the God of greed with the lives of the innocent?
Image via Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.