Tucson
On Sunday, July 18th, a man went on a shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona, killing two people and wounding multiple others. First, he set fire to his house with his wife trapped inside, then he went down to Silverlake Park where he saw a team of paramedics who’d been called to assist an unrelated medical emergency. He opened fire on two EMTs, then went back to his burning house and saw the fire department. He shot and wounded the fire captain who was assisting with the house fire and then proceeded to shoot and kill one of his neighbors who had been outside to see what was going on. After that, he took off in his car, tried to ram a police car that was following him, and ended up being shot by an officer. He is now in the hospital in critical condition. If he lives, he’ll be facing two counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, and arson charges. This crime happened out of the blue; there was absolutely no warning at all. This is a perfect example of the kind of violence that is destroying our democracy. Every time something like this happens, it drives another stake through the hearts of American society. A democracy that can’t protect its people from mass murder will not last long. People are going to start thinking that freedom isn’t worth it anymore because what good does it do to have freedom if you can be shot at any moment?
When Hitler came to power in Germany, most people weren’t anti-Semitists and had never gotten near a gas chamber before; they would have been horrified if they knew what really was going on. These people were not die-hard Nazis and didn’t hate Jews, but slowly over time, they began to subconsciously accept the Nazi way of thinking. They started to accept the propaganda about Jews, thinking that they were inferior, did not belong in a German society, and needed to be eliminated. The same thing could happen in today’s society. If people keep getting shot without warning, people are going to start rejecting inclusion because what good does inclusion do if people keep getting killed? Why should we want to live in a society that has this kind of violence in it? People are gradually going to turn against this and get rid of Biden one way or another. They will then impose a reign of terror and repression on the American system like we have never seen before. People may not like it, may not want it, and may disagree with it, but they will gradually accept it without fighting back. That’s exactly what the Germans did. They didn’t fight back; they didn’t take to the streets and demand that violence against Jews be stopped. They simply sat back and let it happen. They closed their eyes to suffering of their neighbors and let them be taken off to termination camps. That, I fear, is what could happen here if we don’t stop this kind of violence.
Most people think that guns are the issue, but they’re not. Yes, they are a problem, there are too many guns out there, and we need to tighten gun control, but the real problem is hate and violence. If we don’t stop hate, the days of our democracy will be numbered. We need to concentrate our efforts against hate and spread the message that hate is wrong and cannot make anything better. Political leaders like Biden all the way down to local town councilmen should be preaching this message day and night. A great nation cannot be built on hate, contempt, and racism; it can only be built from tolerance and inclusivity. People who commit violent crimes need to be taught how to solve their problems without hatred and need to learn how to negotiate solutions without resorting to violence. Hate is our number one enemy, not guns, and it does not do any good to live in an inclusive society if people don’t know how to use the skills of inclusion.