When I talk about building “a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world”, in practicality, my focus for years has been on the latter two issues.
Violence remains too sensitive an issue for me to embrace for long — I have not yet “become the peace that I want to see”, though it has been over 47 years since I watched in helpless horror as my father brutally beat my mother, who died days later of a ruptured spleen. I had only recently turned 4 years old, and the scars of that day will likely haunt me until I die.
Banning assault weapons would not have saved my mother, but had we not allowed the assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, there is every reason to believe that 20 innocent six and seven year old children, along with 6 brave adults, might not have had their lives so senselessly ended.
I will leave it to countless others to bring forth the powerful argument for banning assault weapons and high capacity clips. I wish only to make one point. I have absolutely no doubt that if politicians were held accountable by an empowered deliberative democracy, rather than to special intersts like the NRA, we would not have let the assault weapons ban lapse.
How many more children have to die before enough of us think that democracy is important enough to fight for?
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