This Shit Must Stop

  

SAY WHAT? - Unarguably declaring, "We have the right not to be shot" in the only country where it's necessary to declare that, hundreds of thousands of Americans marched Saturday against the insane gun carnage that every day kills roughly 106 people and wounds another 200. In D.C., where 50,000 gathered in the rain, our collective trauma was made real when someone may or may not have yelled "gun" and a crowd fled in panic even as a speaker from the stage bellowed, "DO NOT RUN!" This is what our lives have now become. In Texas, where 19 kids and two teachers were just gunned down in Uvalde, 10-year-old Alexandria "Lexi" Rubio was buried amidst tears as, elsewhere in the state, crowds chanted, "Fuck Ted Cruz."

Responding to a request from Parkland survivor and March For Our Lives organizer David Hogg, many people posted pictures of their bountiful, furious signs, which spoke for us all: "Active shooter drills should not be a thing...Fuck the NRA...Save Lives or Step Aside...This shit doesn't happen in Australia...How many gun deaths are enough GOP?... Stop making it easier to buy an AR-15 than it is to adopt a dog...We march for those who can't... As a woman, I hope that one day I will have as many rights as a gun...Am I Next?...Vote For Our Lives...Our government is bold enough to force you to have a kid but too weak to ensure they make it to recess alive...Jesus don't like killing/No matter what the reason's for....Enough is enough." From one Texas pol, "The only kind of evil (is) not doing anything." And from Eleven Films, a searing, gut-punching video reminding us, "This is not a movie. This is real life." Don't look away. 

(Abby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: [email protected])