The events in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio a week ago left people around the word shocked and rattled. For Americans I can only imagine how unsettling these mass shootings are.
For Americans of a certain heritage, I can’t even imagine how horrifying it is to think they were targeted because their head of state has created an environment where hatred is the new normal.
Last week I was ready with a snappy blog post in response to the news. It was going to be an open letter to the multiple candidates for the Democratic nomination. Being a marketer, I was going to offer them a powerful marketing campaign to ensure they get elected in 2020.
My campaign idea was purposely patterned after the winning 2016 campaign. Clearly, it only takes four words to win an election because that’s all it took last time. You remember those words.
Make America Great Again.
Simple. Powerful. Smart.
So smart that their real meaning was hidden to many, but have ultimately resulted in the death, deportation, and defiling of those who were the intended target.
My rebuttal campaign idea was simple.
Make America Safe Again.
Makes sense doesn’t it? A country that clings to its constitution that allows a person to buy an AK-47 and hours later kill a six-year-old boy with it (refresher, that was the mass shooting in California one week BEFORE Dayton and El Paso), needs to realize that it’s so-called rights have created a country of domestic terrorism.
All the people who argue that the right to bear arms has stopped any country from invading America for hundreds of years has forgotten about 9/11 and Pearl Harbour. Your guns don’t scare anybody.
Anyone who says that the right to bear arms is the best defence in the face of these brazen attacks hasn’t looked at the fact that not ONE perpetrator of a mass shooting this year has been stymied by an armed civilian.
Those who argue that many other weapons are used to kill people in more cases than guns is probably the same person who has a preferred form of deadly disease they wish to endorse.
I mentioned at the beginning of this entry that I was ready to roll with this blog post a week ago. A post that consisted of a pitch to politicians who seek office in America.
But then something happened. My own city was rocked by bloodshed. My home town of Toronto was a scene of senseless and brazen shootings. No matter where you turned, there was more calamity to be witnessed.
So I hit pause. America needs to be safe again. But so does all of North America. We all need to question our laws, our leniency towards criminals, our under-funding of social services, our ignoring of our youth, our lack of support for those living in less fortunate circumstances.
There is no quick fix. There is no political fix. But a fix is required.
We live in a society where a slaughter of innocents a week ago evaporated in a few news cycles as the next story rose to the top. The longer we participate in this pattern of shock/awe/forgetfulness, the more threats to our own existence will live on.
Make North America Safe Again.