The guns

I’ll get right to the point: I want to take your guns away.

I wrote and published this in 2021, but unfortunately it’s an evergreen topic, so here it is again with a few updates.

I’ll get right to the point: I want to take your guns away. This is one of several policy positions I hold that will ensure I'm never elected to public office. "Christine 2028: Not gonna happen, in part because of the gun thing." When I hear Democrats defend their stance on gun rights I always think, "Please just say you're going to take their guns away." But they never do!

I know that there are responsible gun owners. I personally know and like some of these responsible gun owners. I understand that there are people who like having guns for whatever reason. I've know that most people who have fun shooting animals would never shoot a person. I can appreciate that hunting is a hobby. I was a founder of my college chapter of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence and even they aren't trying to eliminate all guns. Fair enough.

It's just, if given the opportunity, I would try to take your guns away. All of them. It's utopian and unrealistic, sure, but why not? I’d close down the shooting ranges. Get the guns off the streets. Definitely take them away from cops. Close the gun stores and cancel the gun fairs and empty the gun departments at Walmart. I’d ban hunting with guns. Let’s forget we ever invented guns.

I'm reminded of an essay from Ross Gay's The Book of Delights, called "Flowers in the Hands of Statues", in which he writes:

“A delight I wish to now imagine and even impose ... all new statues must have in their hands flowers or shovels or babies or seedlings or chinchillas — we could go on like this for a while. But never again — never ever — guns.”

Round 'em up and melt them down into garden tools.

Source: Everytown

This week, as kids around my community go back to school, we face the news of yet another school shooting. We are choosing, again and again, to prioritize guns over kids. Guns over people. Guns over community.

I just re-watched President Obama’s briefing after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. Survivors of that shooting have graduated high school by now. When will it end?

As a country, we have been through this too many times.  Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago -- these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children.  And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics. - President Obama, 2012

This morning, I walked my silly eight year old to his first day of third grade, gave him a hug and a wink and said “Ciao” as he walks through the doors of his elementary school.

Let’s build a country where we don’t live in constant fear of being killed by guns.

Reminder that you can help build that country where we can all live in safety by getting out the vote. Register as a volunteer with Vote Forward and send handwritten notes to Democratic-leaning voters and voters from marginalized communities from now through October.