What a slam-dunk of a title. Most people probably won’t even click this article to read, and I know that. But I also know this: there have been 307 mass shootings so far in 2018 in the United States. Don’t believe me? How many headlines do you want?
Here are a few.
Now tell me, how is this making sense to people. 311 days into 2018 and 307 shootings. That’s almost one shooting per day for the entire year. Do you know how disgusting that number is to look at? Do you know sick it makes me feel, thinking of the number of people who have died from all of these shootings? Innocent people have their lives ruined by crazed maniacs who want their face plastered on every single news site and they have the right to control the world and their politics.
But they don’t. Neither do you. And neither do I.
You see, choosing that man to be the President, choosing someone who doesn’t care about anyone but himself, who admitted to sexually assaulting women, who insulted people with disabilities and for the color of their skin, and who abuses his power as President—that was a big mistake. But the biggest mistake was allowing people to think they could walk on top of us without so much as a thought to it.
We live in a world of fear—a world where old white men tell women alike that our bodies are not our own. We have to have babies, keep the family together while the father goes out and works, and when we’re hurt, raped shot, or destroyed, we are the villains.
I’m 22 years old, and while this is no one’s damn business, I don’t want kids. But it’s evolved to more than just not wanting to have a baby. It’s become terrifying to think that if I had a child, they’d never be safe in the world. My child would be going to school, out in public, in a stadium for a game or concert, a movie theatre, a bar, anywhere, and it could very well be shot. Because at the rate we are going, and the number of mass shootings we’re recording, there will come a time where mass shootings don’t matter and become old news.
In a sense, they already have.
So am I supposed to do what I’m told and listen when I’m forced to have a child because that’s all men think we’re good for? Do I not have the choice to be on birth control for free when men can force me to have sex and have a child at any point in time? Since, according to our current president, being a woman is a “pre-existing condition,” does that mean I’m not allowed to have my own thoughts, feelings, and actions?
Does it mean I’m not even human?
If the world is convinced that only rich white men should run it, then it would have stayed that way after the Fathers of the American Revolution enacted the Constitution, and the world started changing. But guess what? It isn’t. That’s not how this works.
Women are the same as men. We work just as hard, if not harder. We are equal, we are people, we have opinions, and we have bodies, minds, hearts; a pulse. If someone thinks they can tell me how I should live, they’re not paying attention. Change is inevitable, and the men who don’t want to change are doing everything to fight back.
So what’s my opinion on politics? We all have to change now. The longer we ignore gun laws not being changed, the longer women are told how to live, the longer we ignore our due diligence as the human race and don’t work to fix the mistakes in these fifty United States, the quicker we’re all going to lose.
America is in some serious trouble, and the only way out of that is to stop stepping in our own shit that we keep forgetting to puck up.
Use your voice. Speak your mind. Force the change to be heard. The only way we’ll get change is to make it.
Let’s start with ending mass shootings that happen almost every day of the year.
Let’s make 2019 different. Please.
For more information:
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/11/666727374/reporting-on-mass-shootings-a-f…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/mass-shootings-in-…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/08/thousand-oaks-cali…