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In the wake of the horrifying mass killing in Uvalde, Texas, a May 25 Bangor Daily News editorial asks, “Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” It’s a question that is rooted in exasperation and despair. So many of us have asked the same question, repeatedly, as we witness the daily wreckage of gun violence in America.
“We would like to believe that Americans — and their elected leaders — have grown tired of seeing children massacred,” the editorial continues. The implication being that Americans, and their elected leaders have not wearied of this insanity. The insinuation is unfounded.
A solid majority of Americans are drained by this scourge, and they demand action now to make our children and communities safe from killers with military-grade weaponry. And it isn’t all elected officials who are refusing to act to stop the carnage. It’s a filibuster-fortified minority of elected officials.
The militarization of society has contributed to the mass proliferation of guns. From 1968 to 2016, there were nearly 1,600,000 gun deaths in the U.S. Our homicide rates were seven times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25.2 times higher. The disease is progressive. The war economy and military spending are out of control.
That’s why I am joining the Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls on June 18. Buses are leaving from several Maine locations.
Christopher McKinnon
Augusta