In our world, there are dangers aplenty. There's no way to mitigate all of them, so many of us carry firearms to minimize the chances we'll be forced to submit to the terroristic threats of the common thug.
Some bad people do use similar weapons, however, to do terrible things. I won't pretend it doesn't happen. I, unfortunately, know from hard experience what it's like to lose someone you care about, though I guess you could say I was fortunate because I lost a dear friend and not a close family member.
Still, I know, and it pisses me off when someone else uses their loss to try and bully the rest of society into taking their radical anti-gun stance and making it into law.
I have a message for the families of Annunciation, for other survivors of gun violence across Minnesota, and for everyone who ended this legislative session feeling disappointed, angry or abandoned: I understand.
Many of us entered this year believing that what happened at Annunciation Catholic Church would be enough.
Enough to move lawmakers.
Enough to create urgency.
Enough to convince elected officials that preventing the next shooting should rise above politics.
Enough to ensure that no parent would have to spend another school day wondering if their child was safe.
For many survivors, that hope collided with reality.
Some lawmakers fought hard. Some didn’t. Some spoke passionately and failed to deliver. Some never intended to.
And for survivors, that hurts.
Because when you’ve buried someone, survived a shooting or spent years carrying the consequences of gun violence, legislative inaction doesn’t feel like politics. It feels personal.
I know because I’ve lived it.
In 2003, my aunt, Shelley Joseph-Kordell, was killed in a shooting at the Hennepin County Government Center. Like so many survivors, my family was thrust into a world we never asked to join. We were devastated. We were angry. And we believed that surely something would change.
Now, I do feel for the author, Rachael Joseph, and her loss. Again, I've been there, and our own Ryan Petty has had it even worse than either Joseph or I have. He and I have talked about that. Not every survivor turns anti-gun, but it's funny how rarely you'll see the survivor activist acknowledge that fact.
Joseph is entitled to her pain and grief. It's real, and I won't pretend otherwise. I also understand her desire to do something so as to make sure no one else suffers as she and her family have. But this isn't the way, and I will not be bullied into submission because of her grief.
If we are, why not Suzanna Hupp's? She actually watched her parents be killed at Luby's Cafeteria in October, 1991. She had a gun in her vehicle, but didn't bring it inside because of Texas state law. She saw her loved ones gunned down by a maniac before her eyes, and she didn't become anti-gun. Quite the contrary, because if she'd not have been stopped by the law, she might have protected not just her parents, but a lot of other people.
But Joseph isn't acknowledging that fact.
No, she pretends that everyone touched by so-called gun violence is anti-gun, and that it's somehow disrespectful to not give up our rights in the name of their pain.
Some of us have our own pain, though. Our pain isn't about gun control; it's about people like Joseph who use the bodies of the slain as a soapbox to push for a set of policies that will put the rest of us in danger.
Never mind that Joseph's aunt was murdered by a cousin who set up a meeting in order to ambush her, an act that most likely still would have happened even if the killer hadn't been armed with a firearm. No, let's not consider that. Let's just all give up our guns so Joseph can feel righteous and screw the millions who have defended human life with a firearm.
Yes, this kind of thing pisses me off. It's because I don't like bullies, and those who try to guilt-trip us into accepting gun control are the worst kind of bullies. They're the ones who have lied to themselves and believe they're the good guys, that they're the main character, and the rest of us are terrible because we won't bend the knee.
Well, she should learn to deal with disappointment.
