Calling Bullshit

Emma Gonzales

photo by Jonathan Drake, Reuters

Their leaders are failing them,
so they say “We will be the change
we need to see.”

They are tired of waiting,
so they say, “We call b.s.”
that the NRA donated 30 million
to the repubs,
who refuse to legislate
tougher gun laws,
though other countries have shown
this is the answer.

I call b.s. too,
that MR-15’s – weapons of war -
are available to anyone
who wants one
and that the prez’s answer
to school shootings
is to arm the teachers.

We have fallen so far down
the rabbit hole
we can no longer see the sky.

But when these young people speak
Truth to power,
Hope rises in my heart
like a brand new day.

Damn right, I’ll walk with them,
support them,
drink in the inspiration of
their pure, unvarnished truth,
stitch up my tattered heart
and march again.

I can’t literally march for this issue, as I live in Canada, and we have other things to march for. But in my heart I am marching, listening, supporting, and speaking out with these kids, who are rising up to make this world more worthy of their presence. Here come our future leaders, who are already providing more leadership than we have seen this past year: Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, Jaclyn Corin. And students all over the country are planning to March for Their Lives on March 24.

When it came to this most recent massacre of school children in the US – the seventeenth shooting in 2018 (and it is just barely March), according to Everytown for Gun Safety  - I had had it. It was with complete admiration that I listened to the young rising up to do what their leaders refuse to do, insisting upon legislated change. Thankfully, these kids will soon be of voting age. I place my hope in them and in the voices in government rising in support of gun legislation – Joe Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, and others.

Corporate interests are now withdrawing their connections to the NRA. Good news, as it is in the pocketbook that impact is most felt by those ruled by money.

Maybe this is the tipping point, where the majority of us, good-hearted people with no Big Money agendas, say “Enough is enough!”

In Canada, we have our problems. But we do not have this repeated incidence of gun violence. We have gun legislation. People still have rifles, still hunt, still can buy the firearms they feel they need. But there are background checks, and guns are registered.  ASSAULT RIFLES are not available to the public. An intelligent, immediate response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting would be to remove assault weapons from sale to the public in the US. That would be a good first step. No civilian, and no hunter,  needs weapons of war.

On March 24, young people will be marching on Washington and across the country. I hope Washington will hear them and not insult their intelligence by ludicrously repeating that arming teachers will make their schools safe.

for my prompt at Real Toads: Being the Change