WASHINGTON — Echoing sentiments shared nationwide since the devastating elementary school shooting in Connecticut on Friday, Congress has maintained its position that it is better to just accept mass murder than to politicize such tragedies by making actual efforts to prevent them.
The almost incomprehensible taking of 26 innocent lives – 20 of them young children – in Newtown, Connecticut, resonated powerfully with Americans in every state, provoking them into advocating reforms to our gun control and mental healthcare policies. While social media networks showcased American citizens at their most empathetic and passionate, working together and discussing ways to aid the families of victims and prevent future massacres, other voices lamented the “politicization” of such a tragic event.
Among these dissenting voices was every member of U.S. Congress, including Senator Malcolm Anderson (I-AL), who took to Twitter to ask citizens to “STOP considering ways to prevent future tragedies like the one in Conn. It’s partisan & disgusting & just generally irksome.”
Senator Anderson later clarified his tweet in a press statement.
“I mean, look: do I believe that we could realistically reduce the likelihood of future tragedies by enforcing existent gun control legislation more strictly, improving the state of our mental healthcare system, and working to reduce the cultural stigma surrounding anxiety and depression? Of course I do,” explained Senator Anderson. “There are countless ways for average citizens to make our public spaces safer through advocacy, but I would never be so tactless as to actually say that, lest I seem all annoying and political.”
“After all, these families need time to grieve,” the senator continued. “So let’s wait a totally arbitrary number of days – let’s say, three days – before exploring ways to make this right. Most people get over the unfathomably soul-crushing trauma of losing a child in three days, right? That way, we lose a ton of the emotional investment that would motivate Americans to push for actual legislation.”
While the mass murder of American children in a public institution that reveals deep flaws in our gun control and healthcare policies is inherently and so goddamn obviously political, recent polls have shown that an increasing number of citizens agree with Senator Anderson.
“Although our spineless reluctance to come off as ‘political’ may defuse potential for meaningful change and essentially enable cowardly monsters like that piece of shit in Connecticut,” said New York resident Shaina Wilson, “I think we can all agree that it’s still better than the alternative of sharing a political opinion.”
At best, says Wilson on behalf of countless other self-conscious Americans, we can only make efforts to silence those who advocate potential solutions, while ignoring the uncomfortable notion that this will basically make us complicit in the future tragedies we will still be unwilling to fight.
