Right after 9/11, I did a strange thing — I wrote a funny Halloween story. It was part of a contest, sponsored by our local PBS radio station. I wrote it because it occurred to me that horror had suddenly become such a routine part of our lives. We were living horror every day. What we needed, desperately, was laughter. My story was later read on air…but that’s not the point. The point is, here we are again. And I haven’t got anything funny to say.
It isn’t funny that LGBTQ persons have been attacked in what was, for them, a safe space…perhaps the only one they had.
It isn’t funny that they still need safe places in this day and age.
It isn’t funny that, among the huge outpouring of love and concern over the deaths in Orlando, there are still a few bad seeds who so misread the Gospel as to believe that God does not love everyone, no matter whom they love.
It isn’t funny that no matter how many people are killed by firearm in this country, we cannot effect meaningful dialog on gun control.
It isn’t funny that I am certain our founding fathers did not mean for this to be so.
It isn’t funny that the easiest way (by far) to murder so many people in so short a time is by gun.
It isn’t funny that the NRA is happy to accept money from terrorists and the mentally ill.
It isn’t funny that someone on the “no fly” list can buy a gun with ease and that so many of us refuse to even discuss why this isn’t funny.
It isn’t funny that the idiotic hysteria of “They’re coming for our guns!” still seems to work. When has anyone come for your guns? When has that happened?
It isn’t funny that we can wait for a marriage license, a driver’s license, for the ability to buy the car we want with the options we want, but we can’t wait a single minute to own a gun.
It isn’t funny when a politician’s takeaway from a mass murder is “I told you so.”
But the least funny thing of all is that this will happen again. The US suffers more gun deaths than any first-world nation on earth — innocent people, little kids. And we won’t even stop for a moment to analyze why because we’re too afraid to. Not funny, folks. Not even a little.
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June 16, 2016 at 5:51 pm
rhcwilliams
This post should be read on the air on PBS, Lori. It should be shouted from the rooftops! Amen!
June 16, 2016 at 7:04 pm
loristrawn
Thanks, Ruth. Honestly, your post said it all; I just couldn’t think of anything more urgent to talk about.
June 17, 2016 at 4:05 am
calensariel
“But the least funny thing of all is that this will happen again.” I just this afternoon said this to Brandon. It made me sick to my stomach. What made me even more sick was that there was a vigil for the victims last night at Weber State University here and when I considered going I got extremely anxious. How quick could THAT turn into an epidemic that keeps people from hollering for more dialog. I was deflated.
June 17, 2016 at 3:10 pm
loristrawn
{{{Calen}}}