Calling a Spade a Spade in the Gun Control Debate

You know what I think would help immensely? I think we should call a spade a spade.

Words have great power. If you speak about things truthfully, that can move mountains.

I think we should tell the truth about gun nuts. Not about people who own guns in general. Not about hunters, or people who collect antique guns because they have an interest in military history. Not about people who have a gun or even a few guns carefully stored in a gun safe, to keep the deer away from their garden and to protect themselves from a burglar or a stalker.  I mean gun nuts. I mean people who have made guns their whole culture because they constantly fear an attack. People who spread conspiracy theories about the eeeeeevil government taking away their guns, people who open carry at Walmart and Starbucks to make themselves feel safe no matter how it makes anyone else feel, people who horde AR-15s and pose with them on Christmas cards to own the libs. The kind who vote to “protect the second amendment” and support the murderous NRA as their greatest priority.

I think we should call those people what they are.

And what they are is cowards.

They’re not masculine. They’re not scrappy Americans ready to protect our constitutional rights at a minute’s notice, just as the Founding Fathers intended. They’re pusillanimous. They’re yella-bellied. They’re scaredy cats.

They are so terrified of day-to-day life that they think they need an arsenal to protect themselves and others from terrorists or immigrants or mean old Black people. They can’t conceive of going into a conflict without having the ability to blow their opponent’s head off and kill the man standing behind him as well. They can’t imagine driving into town to pick up a six pack of beer without arming themselves as if they’re going to a war zone. And thanks to them, our country IS a war zone. Because of them, spineless Republicans keep getting elected and the NRA keeps getting its belly scratched any way it wants.  Because they are cowards, we can’t have the most rudimentary commonsense laws that every other developed country put into place years ago, laws that work. Because of them, the United States is flooded with weapons that serve no purpose other than mass murder, and it’s ridiculously easy to get one. We can’t go to the mall or the movies or even to school without putting ourselves in danger because they’re too scared to live without their giant pile of guns.

And we should call them out for what they are.

Stop thinking about them as cowboys and protectors of their families, when what they are is crybabies.

Because they are cream-faced loons, kids have to go through lockdown drills at school.

Thanks to these are fudge-drawers sniveling ninnies, we can’t go to the mall without wondering if we’ll become a statistic.

Due to the actions of these whiny wimps, we can’t even go to bed in our own homes without wondering if a neighbor is going to snap and shoot us.

Don’t romanticize them. They don’t deserve it.

Their cowardice is killing us, and we should call them cowards.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.