“It Doesn’t Have to be This Way”

Harris and Trump respond to the school shooting in Georgia, and Rep. Jamie Raskin delivers an accessible lesson for all Americans on the Second Amendment

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

MVP Kamala Harris rallied in New Hampshire today with the intent to lay out her vision for her economic policy and present her administration’s plans for better supporting new small businesses, using what the campaign has dubbed the “Opportunity Economy.” 

Her rally could not begin with the same message or spirit as the others—each of which has generated feverish enthusiasm about looking ahead and fighting for the future—because our present moment had just delivered news of a tragedy that has become all too commonplace in this country. After greeting the crowd, Harris paused to speak about the devastating shooting in Winder, Georgia, where two freshmen and two Math teachers were killed and nine others were injured at the hands of a fellow student: a fourteen-year-old boy who barged into school this morning and open fired, using an AR-15-style rifle. 

After acknowledging that information was still being gathered, extending gratitude to the first responders, and expressing sympathy for the students, teachers, and their families, Harris went off script and spoke authentically, with evident passion and frustration.

“This is just a senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies…it’s just outrageous that every day in our country, in the United States of America, parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive. It’s senseless…We’ve got to stop it. We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all. You know, it doesn’t have to be this way; it doesn’t have to be this way.”

It really, really doesn’t. Our children deserve so much better. 

Sensible gun control is one of the many forward-looking policy issues that Harris and Walz have each spoken about emphatically throughout their brief, powerful campaign. They have framed it, along with so many other stakes of this election, as a fundamental issue of freedom.

In Governor Walz’s convention speech, he said, “When we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love. Freedom to make your own healthcare decisions and yeah, your kid's freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.” The Vice President echoed that clarion call in her own convention speech one day later, saying “In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake: The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools…”

So we know where they stand. Meanwhile, Trump called the shooter “a sick and deranged monster” on social media, then responded to the incident at a Fox town hall hosted by his pal Sean Hannity. After mentioning the shooting, despite there being tighter restrictions on guns at the moment, Hannity lobbed one of his softball questions: “What is going on?” 

Trump responded in characteristic fashion, finding a way to sow hopelessness, holler empty promises, heap praise on himself, denigrate our country, and celebrate a despicable global dictator, all in one fell swoop:

“It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons, and we’re going to make it better. We’re going to heal our world. We’re going to get rid of all these wars that are starting all over the place because of incompetent America. And we’re going to make it better. You know, Viktor Orban made a statement. He said ‘bring Trump back and we won’t have any problems.’”

Ah, yes. Because nothing says “we’re going to heal our world” like boasting about a (no doubt embellished) endorsement from an autocrat who has been systematically dismantling his country for fourteen years.     

  

In anticipation of the inevitable ludicrous arguments, weird justifications, and defensive push-back I presume will be forthcoming from right-wing extremists as the nation once again—for the twenty-third school shooting this year—goes through all-too familiar motions of mourning the needless loss of lives and livelihoods, while demanding that we do something about it, it seems like a good moment to get clear-eyed about our Second Amendment. 

On my YouTube Channel, the series “Class with Jamie Raskin” is focused on debunking right-wing constitutional fallacies. This episode addresses the Second Amendment and the many ways it has been exploited, misunderstood, and manipulated, to the peril of the nation and the sacrifice of too many innocent individuals. Congressman Raskin is among the country’s strongest voices for using factual information to combat disinformation, especially when it comes to the Constitution. His entire Class is well worth a watch, but a few points are, sadly, especially pertinent today. 

The United States has the highest rate of gun violence in the industrialized world, and is the leading cause of death for children and young people under age eighteen. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The Second Amendment has been woefully misinterpreted, with MAGA members of our own government using it to justify opposition to sensical gun control measures. Extremist Republicans with no idea what is contained within our Constitution like to argue that the Second Amendment prevents them from taking action, which is patently false. 

Democrats have aggressively advocated for measures like universal background checks, closing loopholes such as buying guns on the internet, and banning military-style assault weapons. Legislatively, we have the power to pass such laws. Which is what the vast majority of Americans would favor. Even our wobbly Supreme Court has never struck down background checks or bans on assault weapons.

And yet, the GOP refuses to address gun violence effectively or to accept these measures when they’re presented to them (even after there was an assassination attempt on their nominee by using one such weapon). They resort to “thoughts and prayers” after mass shootings, without ever showing a willingness to take substantive action. It is a crisis. 

Modern Republicans have sought to blame gun violence on video games, on the shooter’s mental health, the degradation of the nuclear family, and even the number of doors in buildings. They’ve shifted blame to irrelevant factors like the Supreme Court’s decision on school prayer.

Though I hesitate to join in their blame game, I do think it’s worth noting that this district’s very own Representative, Mike Collins, put out this…demonstration, which involves him walking toward the camera, stating that if Joe Biden wasn’t going to fix the 2020 election and get rid of voting machines, he would. He then turns toward the garbage bin labeled with a homemade sign that reads “Voting Machine,” raises his gun, and blows it up with enough fire power that you would think he was in possession of a canon.   

Second Amendment rights are secure in the U.S. We have more guns than any other country in the world. Reasonable gun safety measures can be enacted without infringing on these rights. 

And there is no need for weapons of war to be in the hands of everyday civilians, let alone teenagers. 

As Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock stated: “The entire Winder community is in my prayers, but we can’t pray only with our lips—we must pray by taking action.” 

Let’s pray at the ballot box. It doesn’t have to be this way.