When Guns Are Prized Over Children
Defeating the Cold, Inhuman Heart of the GOP
As evening came on the first day of Pride Month, Joy Reid and guests on MSNBC were discussing the mass shooting in Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas when news broke of a deadly shooting on the campus of St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa.
Under the circumstances, it is fair to ask if “America First” refers to our preeminence in gun death statistics.
The cries of “Do something!” have led to the usual theatre of US senators discussing possible legislation. Republicans, however, eager to blame anything and everything but the proliferation of guns for the mass shooting of schoolchildren and their teachers, have taken a ban on assault weapons off the table, leaving a menu of lesser options.
Gov. Greg Abbott fingers mental health as a factor in mass shootings while starving it of funding. Sen. Ted Cruz proposes locking school doors, a blatant fire code violation. Families of murdered fourth graders demand to know why the “good guys with guns”—police who responded to the scene in Uvalde—waited over an hour before storming the classroom where the gunman was shooting nine- and 10-year-olds. This raises the question of why we should even have police if they prefer tackling distraught parents to facing danger inherent in their work.
The all-too-common atrocity in Uvalde inspired the Federalist online magazine to repeat opportunistically its call for more homeschooling. How the socialization of children is furthered by locking them in home fortresses—a COVID shutdown on steroids—is not explained.
Laura Ingraham of Fox News blames the shooting on “pot psychosis,” echoing the notorious 1936 film Reefer Madness. Former Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron, who decries public schools’ “far-left agenda” including Critical Race Theory and “gender ideology,” has a new documentary advocating homeschooling. He says, “The problem is that public school systems have become so bad…. [T]hey’re doing more for grooming, for sexual chaos and the progressive left than any real educating about the things that most of us want to teach our kids.”
Cameron has no idea what CRT is other than a pretext to ban teaching about America’s racial history. He uses “gender ideology” and “grooming” as frames for demonizing and erasing gender-nonconforming children and those who support them. His embrace of homeschooling is part of a long right-wing effort to undermine public education and further disadvantage minorities.
One might wish inflammatory chatter would be avoided when children are being terrorized. This appears not to dawn on people for whom guns are more sacred than children. A gun-centric culture has been sacralized here in a way not seen in any other country. How else to explain an advertisement showing a toddler handling a rifle? How to explain demands to arm teachers by the same people who don’t trust them with books or curricula?
Those of us who oppose our country’s slide toward fascism need to be clear that we cannot shoot our way out of the problem. Slanders about CRT and grooming are designed to push us toward Armageddon, not resolve differences.
When Black, brown, gay, and transgender children are associated with a feverishly asserted threat to civilization, violence can be seen not as an unforeseen tragedy but as the inevitable outcome.
I was reluctant to write that sentence. But with conservatives’ heartless wedge politics and demonization of public schools, they bear responsibility for what their reckless talk inspires. After right-wing sources spread a false claim that the Uvalde shooter was transgender, a terrified trans girl in Texas was set upon by four men fueled by group blame, one of whom called her a “mental health freak.” Imagine having the courage to remain true to yourself despite being the nation’s favorite scapegoat.
The GOP has given itself over to holy warriors determined to portray anyone but white, cisgender, heterosexual, evangelical Christians as an existential threat. Given the far right’s vicious nonsense about replacement theory, does it really surprise us when children who embody various imagined threats are targeted for violence?
We cannot paper this over with soothing talk and unsatisfying compromises on red-flag laws. We cannot charm our way past the culture war being waged against us and our loved ones.
In order to defeat the politics of intolerance, we must work in coalition—a true rainbow coalition such as we’ve seldom seen. All of our understanding, imagination, and respect must be brought to bear. Only by rising to the best in ourselves can we overcome the looming threat. ▼
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at rrosendall@me.com.