H.R. 7910, PROTECTING OUR KIDS ACT 

“The gun then becomes the…equalizer…” — Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, The Isis Papers, p. 110

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Much as Roe v. Wade is on the ballot this midterm election cycle, so too is the Second Amendment. From the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, to the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh, to the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, to Buffalo, Uvalde, Atlanta, and so on, the firearm, once referred to in the era of Manifest Destiny as the “thunder-stick” or “fire-stick,” has often been regarded as one of the most critical elements, if not the most critical element of white supremacy and domestic terrorism. It is necessary to dismember white supremacy by removing its essential member. At the federal level, unfettered access to firearms must be crippled.

What if, instead of merely framing gun violence as a public health issue, it were framed as a homeland and national security issue, and in the interests of countering domestic terrorism, the President issued a federal gun control executive order containing elements of  H.R.7910, S.4255, and H.R.8, even S.4080 as well, and the Supreme Court did not rule the order unconstitutional because it mitigates an imminent national security threat? When considered as a matter of public health, we arrive at a scenario similar to the one around Executive Order 10340 of April 8, 1952  where the decision on Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer was that authorization from Congress or the Constitution is required, as opposed to Executive Order 13228 of October 8, 2001 which established the Department of Homeland Security. Beyond the ATF and the Gun Control Act of 1968, and any other relevant laws on the books, what expeditious measures may be taken to curtail access to assault weapons and reduce the number of mass shootings in the United States?

We live in an increasingly intemperate political climate, exacerbated by the effects of COVID, geopolitical shocks to the economy resulting from war in Ukraine, and global climate change itself. The summer will only get hotter, tempers will flare out of control, and the average 1.5 mass shootings per day will increase exponentially, if not factorially. Armed School Resource Officers and other “good guys with guns” have not been effective at neutralizing threats without a tremendous amount of casualties in this recent spate of active shooter incidents. I see no other alternative to expedite federal gun control other than the “reverse psychology” triggered by of a wave of new legal gun ownership on the part of Black and other nonwhite people, apropos of California State Assembly Bill 1591, otherwise known as the Mulford Act of 1967, made an “urgency statute” after the May 2nd intrusion upon the California State Capitol that same year.

Elders who never had a chance to tell their children goodbye. Children who never had a chance to become elders. A system that doesn’t stand a chance to continue unless it acknowledges its desperate need to change. A prayer for resolute leadership that can ravel this Gordian Knot of injustice. These are the frustrations with which we all contend as we try to progress forward towards a solution that saves lives.