"Guns reveal themselves as being central to white supremacy... Until Americans fully understand and reconcile their past, they have little hope of addressing the epidemic of gun violence in America today." - Thom Hartmann
The origins of the second amendment are steeped in the overriding goal, to calcify the institution of slavery, and perpetuate a permanent slave class. Arguably, without slavery, the second amendment would lack a raison d'etre. There is a through-line from the atrocities of the Atlantic slave trade, to the proliferation of guns in the US.
The phenomena of widespread gun violence in the US is of gargantuan proportions. It is tearing away at the fabric of society, with no let-up or solution in sight. The rampant, flagrant, orgiastic bloodletting, caused by gun violence, is a sword of Damocles over the nation. Every needless death is a human tragedy, with appalling seen and unseen ripple effects.
In a fantasy world, I envision blood-red roses, strewn about and blooming, in the African soil, from where men, women, and children were cruelly removed, at gun point, to exist and labour as human chattel, in North American slavery. Every rose bears witness to the personhood and dignity of a human life; annihilated, root and branch, from African soil.
In further flights of fancy; in recognition of our shared, sacred humanity, my mind's eye captures blood-red roses, blossoming in US soil. Each, a memorial, to a victim of unjustified and indiscriminate, ghastly gun violence.
My ode to victims, on both sides of the Atlantic:
BLOOD ROSES
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