Yeah I'm expecting this guy to actually do something other than a publicity stunt. Good luck with that...
TO: Senator Theodore "Ted" Cruz, (R)-Texas
I am writing you today to address yet another tragedy of gun violence. This one is particularly disturbing to me, because it didn't take place in Buffalo, or Miami, or Las Vegas.
It took place in an elementary school in Uvalde Texas.
This is the state that sent you to the US Senate. It's also the state where I happen to live.
21 people have died from this shooting, 18 of them children.
Not young adults. Not teenagers. Elementary aged children.
I want you to take a moment to actually THINK about that. Eighteen little kids, gunned down while at school. Don't pray. Don't issue platitudes like you did on Twitter. THINK about eighteen children dead from gunshot wounds.
Eighteen kids who won't ever have a Sweet 16 party, or get their driver's license. They won't throw their mortar caps in the air when they graduate high school. They won't get jobs, they won't marry, they won't have kids of their own, or grandkids.
Their futures were all cut short by little bits of metal fired at them, by someone who was told over and over, through our media, through our rhetoric, that Guns Fix Problems. He had problems, so instead of actually figuring out how to solve them, he grabbed the gun he'd purchased, no background check required because it's Texas, and he decided that a school was a really good place to make a last stand.
We don't need to go into the killer's motivation, his issues, his anger or pain or whatever it was that drove him to this.
What I want to address with you is, you need to get off your hands and actually DO something to prevent the next shooting. That's right, Senator, it's your turn at bat here. See, the state of Texas sent you to Washington to represent US, to voice our needs and concerns, and when we need you to ACT in our stead, we expect you to do so.
And all I see are more “thoughts and prayers.” Same old platitudes, same old handwaving, “We can't do anything.”
Well, no, that's where you're wrong, Senator. Back in 2021, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, and referred it to the Senate for passage into law. It has languished in the Senate ever since, without a single floor vote. Not One. No discussion, no deliberation, not a single roll call.
And now I see you're scheduled to speak at the N.R.A. Convention in Houston this week, and I begin to see why you aren't going to offer anything other than thoughts and prayers for these dead kids. So far you have accumulated $176,274 worth of reasons not to mention anything about H.R. 8 or any other gun control matter, and every last one of those reasons have “In God We Trust” printed on them and arrived via an envelope with the letters N, R, and A stamped in the corner. So instead you'll attend this convention, thank the God-loving gun owners of the U.S. Of A for backstopping Freedom for all these years, and thank the National Rifle Association for their generous support. And you won't mention those 18 kids, not a peep. Why?
Because, Senator Cruz, you've been paid not to mention them.
Now, what will it take, for you to actually value a child's life, a TEXAS child's life, over those dollar signs? What WILL it take for you to put your hand out and say, “No I can't take this money, it's got blood all over it.” I suspect that's a rhetorical question, because after Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Buffalo, Las Vegas, El Paso, and all the other mass shooting events we've suffered, no one in the Senate has actually stood up and said, “You know what? I'm sick and tired of this, and I'm going to stop sandbagging and actually take this problem on.” Instead, you all sign on to the Boogeyman Theory, wherein “we NEED these guns, they're for self-defense!”
Senator Cruz, I grew up with guns in the house, I was shooting magpies out of apricot trees when I was 10, my father and mother brought home an elk every fall for our year's supply of meat, and over my lifetime I've owned a variety of weapons, including an old Swedish Mauser and a Mossberg 12-gauge. I know what they're for. And contrary to the NRA's marketing materials, they are NOT for shooting people. They are not for intimidation either in private or in public, they are not for showing off. They are tools for a specific purpose, and that purpose is to end a threat to life and property, usually a predator like a coyote, or a bear, or sometimes a little black and white bird that's ruining the fruit crop.
And I would ask you, Senator, what exactly are we supposed to be defending FROM, that we need these weapons in mass quantities? Is North Korea going to airdrop troops on us some fall morning? Is there going to be a zombie uprising in our future? Or is the 'threat' something else, something once-human but dehumanized? You know where I'm going with this.
LIBERALS. Liberals are out to change our way of life! They're going to make us all pay taxes, and get abortions, and read CRT before bedtime! They're going to make our little girls gay, our little boys transgendered, and they're going to steal our wives and make them drive Priuses!
Really? Pardon my language, Senator, but that's a load of stale manure, right there.
I've been voting Democrat my whole life, Senator, and not once have I ever considered forcing someone to be something they're not. I don't care one way or the other about gay people, or immigrants (both sides of my family originated elsewhere, as did yours), or how many dildos someone buys online. I believe the question of abortion is the Absolute. Most. Life-changing. Decision. Ever. for any woman you could name, and I have zero right to butt in on that because it's none of my business. I believe that every citizen in this country from 18 onwards has the right to vote how they please, and that regardless of how their vote is cast, we should count it as valid. I believe that we should all pay our fair share in taxes, and that no one is 'too rich' to get out of that obligation. I believe in the rule of law, with one set of laws for everyone, and not a second set for corporations or wealthy people. Everyone gets the same fair shake and even shot, and no one gets propped up or set loose with a “don't do it again” hand slap, due to birth or influence.
For the above beliefs, I am being dehumanized by your rhetoric, and set up as a target for all those people who have been told, over and over, that I am an existential threat to their very way of life. And furthermore, I am a target for those same people who have been told, over and over and over again, that Having a Gun is how you deal with “existential threats”.
The Uvalde shooter was facing an existential crisis, as many violent shooters before him. And exactly as they have been taught by the marketing materials, they brought out their gun and 'went hunting'.
So, while you wring your hands and pontificate on this latest tragedy, I'll be going down to the sporting goods store, stocking up on ammo (again), cleaning my pistol and my carbine (again), and then putting them all back in the gun safe, because I don't have a coyote in my yard, I don't have magpies in my fruit trees, I don't have a bear trying to break into my storage cellar, and I don't have the urge to shoot people because the world sucks and I've been handed a scapegoat by Fox News.
Instead, I'm writing my Senator (even though he's of the opposing party, there was a time, a decade or so back, when that didn't matter), whom I would HOPE would pick up the ball and run with it.
Senator Cruz, PLEASE mention those kids during your speech to the N.R.A. And this time, try to see them as more valuable than the money you're paid to not mention them. Thoughts and prayers aren't enough. We need actual changes, sensible legislation passed (H.R. 8 would be a start, it's all ready to read and vote on), and for the love of all we consider holy and good, we need to stop selling weaponry as the Answer To Our Problems. THAT answer is right here in front of you, wherein we set aside whatever oppositional bias we have toward each other, and actually talk about the problem and potential solutions, and not just handwave it off as “inevitable” or “unavoidable” or “an Act of God”. And once we've talked about how to fix things, we gather the courage and the fortitude to pick up the hammer or the pen or the voting roll, and fix them.
Those are MY thoughts, and the above is MY prayer.
Respectfully,
[dcnblues]
Savannah TX
P.S. I'm also posting this on one of those icky "progressive" blog aggregators, and linking to Twitter, so you might get people following up on it other than me.
