When the story broke about football player Ray Rice punching his girlfriend out in an elevator, people generally condemned him, sure, but there really wasn’t much you could describe as outrage. Ho-hum, just another juiced-up jock hitting his girl. Punish him and let’s move on.
But then, the video of the actual deed was leaked. Then, we saw what that cold-cock knockout looked like. And the story blew up into a raging national scandal. Pretty much the same thing with the Rob Foster story. The pic of wifey’s shiner ignited a national outrage that put a glaring spotlight on yet another example of appalling White House incompetence.
Same with all the stories of white cops killing unarmed black males. Back in the day, when nobody had a cell phone with a camera, nobody really got all that worked up about white cops killing unfortunate black boys/teens/men. But now we have pics and videos from phones of these insane acts of racial hatred, and now, black lives matter.
The point being that one picture is still worth a thousand words. Damn right.
So maybe it’s time for some brave insider in the Parkland Florida police department to leak the crime scene photos of 17 freshly slaughtered students and teachers to CNN and Buzzfeed and the Washington Post. Let us have a look at what an AR-15 does when unleashed in a crowded school. Let’s suck it up, gird our loins, and dare to actually view the sheer horror of what all those dozens of blazing bullets did in the hallways of Parkland and Sandy Hook and Columbine. Maybe we should have a look at what madness looks like when combined with assault weapons. We hide from its ugly reality. We turn away. We can’t bring ourselves to look. And then, we forget. Then, we do nothing. Well, maybe if we saw, we would actually do something. Something besides pray. Because that approach ain’t working too good.
Remember when many fought like hell to keep marriage between a man and a woman? Then, the courts spoke, and same-gender couples could freely couple, and now—who gives a damn? Who cares? Who even thinks about it? A new ban on assault weapons would be exactly the same. Who would suffer if you couldn’t go to the local Gun Mart and pick up an AR-15? What would be the hardship? Hey pal, you can have 74 shotguns and 62 Glocks for all I care. Knock yourself out. But goddammit, these war guns. This is insane. This is nuts. We’re out of our fucking minds.