It’s been five years since a shooting in an El Paso Walmart claimed the lives of 23 people and injured 22 others. It was a horrific event, one committed by a disturbed individual with a warped ideology.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, as is the norm after anything like this, we had legions of politicians and activists calling for gun control throughout the nation. Many got their wish in their home states, but in Texas and the nation as a whole, nothing happened. Nothing should have happened, of course, but for these activists, that was an outrage.
Now that we’ve hit the anniversary of that awful day, many of those advocates are renewing their calls for gun control.
Saturday marked five years since a self-described white nationalist killed 23 people and injured 22 others with an AK-47-style semiautomatic rifle at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and the anniversary sparked fresh calls for efforts to combat gun violence and racism.
“Five years after a man armed with hate and a gun drove into our community and stole the lives of 23 of our friends and neighbors, we still feel the pain of their absence,” said Myndi Luevanos, a volunteer with the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action in El Paso, in a statement. “Since the shooting, our leaders have refused to meet the moment, failing to enact common-sense gun safety measures that could save lives and address the disproportionate rate of gun violence faced by the Latinx community in Texas.”
“Half a decade later, we cannot let the failures of the past become the norm,” Luevanos continued. “Now more than ever, we must honor the victims and their families with action and protect Latinx Texans for generations to come from gun violence.”
The group Brady said on social media that “easy access to guns, especially assault rifles, makes hate lethal. We must #HonorWithAction and #DisarmHate.”
I hate to break it to Brady, but hate is lethal. You don’t need a gun to kill someone. We’ve seen that all too often.
All that one needs is a lack of respect for human life and/or an inability to see certain groups as actually human. Remove those and you’re far less likely to see something like El Paso come to pass again.
Unfortunately, we’re not permitted to have that debate. That debate would undermine the gun control cause and so we don’t see in on our televisions and livestreams. We don’t get to have that debate because that runs counter to what Brady wants, which is the complete disarmament of the civilian population. They’ll say they want no such thing, but they’re always calling for the next gun control law. Each little bite off of our rights moves us closer to that goal and Brady and similar groups show no interest in drawing a line.
El Paso happened not because the killer could get an AK-style rifle. It happened because he hated a particular group of people and figured they needed to be exterminated for the good of mankind. That’s what was in his supposed manifesto.
As for “protecting Latinx Texans for generations to come,” let’s start by saying I can’t take anyone seriously who uses “Latinx” unironically. Spanish is a gendered language and throwing an “X” at the end to degender it is beyond ridiculous. Sorry no sorry.
Yet if you want to address the concept that violence against Hispanic people is higher than other groups, then you need to address illegal immigration, not guns. Hispanic people are targeted in states like Texas because bad guys figure there’s a better-than-average chance they’re illegal. Illegal immigrants are less likely to call the police because of their status as illegal immigrants, which means a better-than-average chance of getting away with the crime.
Take the guns away and you’re still going to see violence against Hispanics occurring at a higher rate than other ethnicities.
Guns aren’t the problem. People are the problem. People have always been the problem and always will be. Once you accept that, you can start to look for meaningful solutions for a change.
