The federal government, including the President, Congress and Supreme Court are effectively intimidated and immobilized by the right-to-bear arms lobby, and state legislatures are powerless to enact effective laws to regulate the ownership of firearms.
Nonetheless, across the nation, in thousands of cities and towns, people are asking if there is anything they can do locally to prevent such tragedies.
There is an effective and inexpensive answer: Simply reduce the number of guns in circulation, while respecting Second Amendment rights, discourage gun violence, and honor the memory of those whose lives have been destroyed by guns.
Imagine a memorial to gun violence in front of every city hall and court house in the country constructed of guns that have been legally seized by local law enforcement and the courts and that have been voluntarily surrendered by members of the community.
Over the years, guns taken out of circulation are welded to the unique neighborhood sculptures and the names of local victims are inscribed on the memorials.
As rust, rather than blood, runs down the sculptures and stains the ground, the horror of gun violence will fade from our collective consciousness and become a footnote in our nation’s history.
We can learn to live without guns, as we come to accept that what makes us human is our ability to live at peace with one another, not our ability to murder little children by pointing a gun and mindlessly pulling the trigger.
We must do something, otherwise we all share the blame whenever the innocent are slaughtered by guns.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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