Orlando
Prejudice and hatred are not the unique property of any one culture, any one faith, any one community.
Blaming one set of people for all the worlds ills makes those ills worse, not better.
Fostering a culture of suspicion, fear, hatred and contempt for others creates violence, widens divisions and ensures that those at the top stay unchallenged, ruling through that fear and suspicion.
Gun control is not communism. It is not a theft of rights from the individual. It is not an indication of government intervention gone mad. It's a recognition that guns are not status symbols, not badges of personhood, not vital protections. They are weapons made for one thing and one thing only, to kill.
To those who speak of the right to own guns, I ask this: what of the right to life of the victims yesterday in Florida, last year in Charleston, in Aurora and Columbine and Sandy Hook and all too many more. What about the right to life of the innocent, killed for being in the wrong place in the wrong time, because someone was fuelled with hate and rage, because some government wanted war, because the victims were the 'wrong' colour, age, gender, nationality, sexuality...?
This latest terrorist attack, this time against gay people, is not just about the religion and opinions of the shooter. It's about a wider culture that says gay lives, black lives, female lives, trans lives, disabled lives are all worth less than the nebulous right of the prejudiced and the greedy, the fearful and the suspicious, the haters and the bullies, to say and do anything and everything they want to, because only some people (people like them) matter. It's about the absurd cult of gun ownership that seems to be embedded in US culture.
You have no right to kill others because they are not like you.
You have no right to kill others because what they are -- their ethnicity, their sexuality, their gender identity -- offends you.
You have no right to kill.
Blaming one set of people for all the worlds ills makes those ills worse, not better.
Fostering a culture of suspicion, fear, hatred and contempt for others creates violence, widens divisions and ensures that those at the top stay unchallenged, ruling through that fear and suspicion.
Gun control is not communism. It is not a theft of rights from the individual. It is not an indication of government intervention gone mad. It's a recognition that guns are not status symbols, not badges of personhood, not vital protections. They are weapons made for one thing and one thing only, to kill.
To those who speak of the right to own guns, I ask this: what of the right to life of the victims yesterday in Florida, last year in Charleston, in Aurora and Columbine and Sandy Hook and all too many more. What about the right to life of the innocent, killed for being in the wrong place in the wrong time, because someone was fuelled with hate and rage, because some government wanted war, because the victims were the 'wrong' colour, age, gender, nationality, sexuality...?
This latest terrorist attack, this time against gay people, is not just about the religion and opinions of the shooter. It's about a wider culture that says gay lives, black lives, female lives, trans lives, disabled lives are all worth less than the nebulous right of the prejudiced and the greedy, the fearful and the suspicious, the haters and the bullies, to say and do anything and everything they want to, because only some people (people like them) matter. It's about the absurd cult of gun ownership that seems to be embedded in US culture.
You have no right to kill others because they are not like you.
You have no right to kill others because what they are -- their ethnicity, their sexuality, their gender identity -- offends you.
You have no right to kill.