Mass shooting leaves 14 dead in San Bernardino, California, December 2, 2015. Demotix/Eric Rosenwald. All right reserved. In
the three years since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary and the subsequent failure
to reform the hollow gun laws of the United States, we have been forced to bear
witness to mass shootings at more schools, at malls and movie theaters, at
hospitals and health centers, and at houses of worship. Shooters, it appears,
are determined in their murderous madness to penetrate the most
defenseless sectors of American life. They struck again in late November—at
a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and on December
2 at a service center for people with disabilities in San Bernardino,
California.
Nevertheless, as we prepare for another
winter of death and despair, our answer must be to fight for reform with a
faith that is as obstinate as the spring.
Despite this growing catalog of carnage, many of America's representatives refuse to enact any law that would help stanch the senseless bloodshed. Instead, they remain frozen in the ice of their
own indifference. And we—the American people—have not yet summoned the collective
will necessary to break through it.
That
tremendous criticism of the ancient Greeks can similarly be said of us: they watch
the slaughter unfold as if it were a gathering storm, each praying that it does
not come their way, but none acting to stay its course.
We
know that there are legislative actions that could save lives; we know that
many of these actions enjoy the support of the majority of Americans. Yet we
passively accept, perhaps as a result of successive frustrations, that even the
majority is powerless in the face of special interest groups that choke off the
channels of change. In short, we concede that in our representative democracy a
well-funded, well-organized few can overwhelm the righteous will of the many.
This
absurd state of affairs has an inevitably self-fulfilling character. For when
people give up their sense of possibility and their faith in the efficacy of
the democratic system, they withdraw from it—dimming any future hope of
achieving their ends. What is left is what we have today: relentless shootings
with no end in sight. This is our democracy, the very system that marks us as exceptional, and we must find a way to make it work. The responsibility is ours.
Nevertheless,
as we prepare for another winter of death and despair, our answer must be to
fight for reform with a faith that is as obstinate as the spring. Because if
our gun laws are to be reformed; if we are to overcome the outsize influence of
the NRA; if we are to be citizens, not helots; then we must rid ourselves of
the juvenile notion that the responsibility for solving our problems rests in
the hands of others. This is our democracy, the very system that marks us as
exceptional, and we must find a way to make it work. The responsibility is
ours.
There
are tens of millions of Americans—I am one of them—who say they favor sensible
reforms to the laws that enable the ongoing slaughter, yet who do little to
ensure those reforms are enacted. Most of us, to paraphrase Thoreau, sit around
with our hands in our pockets and complain that we do not know what to do, so
we do nothing. Occasionally we post on social media; maybe we sign a petition.
But, in truth, many of us give less than our full. We wait for someone else to do
the hard and heavy work of citizenship—the organizing, the door knocking, and
the marching.
The burden belongs to the entire nation; we have a shared responsibility to
stem the bloodshed. There can be no higher call on our consciences or for national
action than for each of us to vigorously engage in the country’s civic and
political life until we have succeeded in this task. And perhaps by doing so,
we might make the hope of democracy real again for our nation and for our century.
