There’s a scene in the movie Platoon, it’s almost at the end, where things have become so hopeless the Captain is forced to instruct the fighter planes to bomb his own position.
Snakebite leader, Bravo Six, for the record, it’s my call. Dump everything you got left ON MY POS. I say again, I want all you’re holding INSIDE the perimeter. It’s been a hell of a fucking war. Bravo Six Actual and Out.
It was a desperate act of a man in a terrible situation. Maybe he felt he could at least claim a few more casualties from the grave. He was not only surrounded by the enemy, he was awash in them. They had come pouring through his defenses in waves, and there was no escape.
It seems to be a perfect scene for America today.
We have heavily armed men acting with complete disregard for norms, laws, or religious imperatives. Most of the time they have purchased the assault rifle, ammunition, tactical gear legally. It isn’t hard, anybody can do it. Then they go and slaughter children or minorities, it depends on their manifesto, I guess.
After the shooting in Uvalde Texas, Governor Greg Abbot suggested arming the teachers. An old trope, that is paraded around after students are gunned down. I suggest, to you, Governor, the problem in elementary schools is not the lack of guns. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have fewer guns?
Besides, Governor, it seems the first responders couldn’t stop the gunman because of his body armor. It took a specially trained and equipped tactical unit that had to be summoned. Even then, one of the heavily equipped, extensively trained police officers was wounded. Unless we are going to arm the teachers, dress them up in expensive, cumbersome gear and drill them in fire and maneuver techniques we’re wasting our time.
Suppose, Governor, we pull this off, and we can turn teachers into riflemen, we still risk the chance of a student being gunned down in the crossfire. The best thing we can hope for, Governor, is the children will be spared dying, but they will be scarred for life watching their teacher exchange fire with a heavily armed criminal. That’s your best case, Governor?
Conversely, we go the mental health avenue. It isn’t guns, it’s “crazy” people. So why don’t we make health care, and mental health care affordable and accessible to everybody?
Of course, that would be expensive, and most Republicans are adamantly opposed to anything that even smells like a national health care package. So, we should have a law that says if you’re suffering from a mental illness, you must get help, even if it bankrupts you.
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican, Texas, has suggested we have only one way in and out of the schools. I’m sure that would deter an armed, angry assailant. Too bad Ukraine didn’t think of that. It would have saved a lot of trouble.
Lock the doors, bolt the windows, place guards in schools, turn elementary school into a fortified encampment. And if anybody gets in just call in the airstrike. The enemy is in the wire.
Still, the numbers keep growing, but the numbers mean nothing. They are an accountant’s tool, a tally sheet of the macabre. It is when you see the pictures of the children who will never go home again, the smiling faces erased from the ledger of the world, that’s when you feel the pain. To think of the parents making arrangements to bury their child you get a knot in your stomach, a dull empty pain centered in behind your eyes.
We need an assault rifle ban. We need mandatory background checks. We need politicians who will not accept NRA contributions. We need to save our children, or we need to admit we have lost, and call in the airstrike on our own position. “It’s been a hell of a fucking war.”
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David Geitgey Sierralupe on Flickr under CC License
