In a country far away, old friends sit around a table in a café drinking tea as they do every evening.
“Can you believe what happened in Texas?” asked one.
“The shooting? Unbelievable. Those poor children. Their families. I can’t imagine the pain. When will it stop?”
They all were waiting for the elder of the group to speak.
“It is amazing to me how America ignores the obvious,” he said.
“What do you mean?” they asked.
“It astounds me that the strongest country in the world, the most generous country in the world finds itself impotent to stop their own children from being butchered. They will mourn the murder of these innocent babies. They will say what they believe are all the right things but are actually platitudes.
And then they will move on. Move on? What amazes me about America is that in the face of their children being slaughtered, there is no resolve.
“The shooter? If there had been no guns available to him, if those who govern America had any modicum of courage, those children and their teacher would be alive today. There have been 15 mass shootings in America in the last 10 days. 27 school shootings this school year and 198 mass shootings in the last 19 weeks.
In Chicago, children are murdered walking to school. Children are murdered in their homes, with bullets coming through the windows. These killings are tolerated. No other civilized country does. And yet America accepts this.”
To the elder’s right, a friend said, “Their argument is that guns don’t kill people, people do.”
“That is stupidity,” the elder said. “There will always be crazy people in the world. In our country and virtually every other country of the world, we make it very difficult, nigh impossible for crazy people to get their hands on guns. For anyone to have a gun. If there had been no guns available to the shooter, those precious children would be alive today.
“It is as simple as that.”
From another friend, “But what about their Constitution? It tells Americans they have the right to bear arms.”
The elder smiled ruefully. “Americans, for reasons I cannot fathom, insist on maintaining an archaic and literal interpretation of their founding Constitution, 241 years after it was written. Do they still believe that God created the world in seven days? No. Do they maintain the same interpretation of scientific principals they had 200 years ago? When that amendment to their Constitution was written, Americans did have reason to fear invasion of their homes by foreign countries. They are no longer under attack.
“Except by themselves.
“I think of the children’s tale of ‘The Emperor Who Had No Clothes.’ He was so consumed by himself that he was unable to see how truly pathetic he looked.
“Americans wail about the deranged among them who commit these atrocities, as if the deranged are the evil. They are not. The evil among them are the guns. And those who allow guns to be as plentiful as loaves of bread.
“What they don’t realize is that the rest of the world is collectively shaking its head at America. The greatest country in the world? When their absence of will, their absence of laws or enforcement of laws allow innocent children to be slaughtered?
“Don’t make me laugh.”