Enough is Enough (Put An End to Assault Weaponry)

I am firm believer in prayer and the prayer I have right now after the shooting and killing of 19 innocent children and 2 innocent teachers by an assault firearm in Uvalde Texas is, "Have the lawmakers stop the sale of assault weaponry because enough is enough."

It is time for us to hold our lawmakers accountable for allowing this horror to happen when they could have voted to have a background checks put in place, and to put an end to the sale of assault weapons to the public. An assault weapon is not a weapon to protect life and property, it is a weapon to kill on a mass scale. The only justification for the sale of assault weapons is that the gun manufacturers stand to make big profits at the expense of our lives. We need to protect ourselves from the gun manufacturers that are assaulting our families for profit. These things keep happening because we are allowing them to, and we need to say "enough is enough."

If your favorite politician voted to allow the sale of assault weapons you need to put your vote where your conscience is or should be. We need politicians that are not in bed with the gun manufacturers. We need politicians that care about families, and the most vulnerable in our society, one of them being our children. Ted Cruz at the NRA Convention on May 27th, 2022, stated that Chicago had high murder rates even with gun bans, but never stated that much smaller cities like Jackson, Miss.; Gary Ind.; and St. Louis - with permissive gun laws had twice the murder rate, and that 60% of the guns use in crimes in Chicago came from out of state, most from Indiana (where there are more lax gun laws) (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/0...) Be careful what politicians feed you. Are they looking out for your best interest or are they looking to line their pockets and the pockets of their crony business friends. Ted Cruz just recently won a lawsuit in the Supreme Court where he will be reimbursed for monies that he laid out to his campaign. Sounds innocent enough, until you analyze this and figure if politicians are allowed to use their money to finance their campaign and then get reimbursed, then we the taxpayer pay for it, and it also puts politicians with personal deep pockets in the advantage, meaning if you are rich you can buy yourself a seat by having the most advertising and the taxpayer gets to foot the bill. Well, it sounds like he's not looking after his constituents or the people of his district or the nation, but he is looking to line his pockets and stay in power. This law jeopardizes a fair political process with potential candidates having the inability to compete with the rich boys, hence making it harder for democracy to work for all the people, but in this case it certainly favors the wealthy.

We also can't let it be that we only care when we are affected directly, and the death of someone else's child is of no importance or consequence. Everyone's child is our child. Because when only some people's children are of value, the time will come when the roulette wheel will point to us (And Heaven forbid that anyone's child is ripped from their parent in such a way). It's time that we say "enough is enough" and we vote with a conscience and we decide that families (the nucleus of any society) needs to come first, and we need politicians that care for us as human beings, and that profits do not outweigh the lives of our children. Just take a moment in your mind and walk through that school room, and see what took place, and the horror of it, and say to yourself never again because "enough is enough."

About the author: Raquel Irizarry holds a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary and a Masters of Science of Social Work from Columbia School of Social Work. She is a guest minister, writer and activist.