"Freedom isn't free"
This aphorism is proudly shouted out by those in the USA who believe the 2nd amendment is the most important in the US Constitution. Eternal vigilance, they say, preferably armed and ready is the price of freedom.
"Freedom isn't free"
The USA has just endured yet another mass shooting, this time at a grocery store where ten people were murdered while freely shopping for dinner simply because a well armed individual decided to shoot them. Fans of the second amendment lay the blame squarely on the shooter. "Guns don't kill people", they say, "people kill people". As if the shooter could have just as easily ended ten lives with a kitchen knife.
Freedom isn't freedom
Americans actually argue over the definition of "mass shooting" and "school shooting" as if such sophistry matters to the victims. American kindergarten children are subjected to active shooter drills as part of their introduction to school. These drills are repeated at each grade level until they graduate or die in yet another mass school shooting. The list of American activities which could end with a bullet in your body now includes: Attending school, Attending a concert, Partying at a bar, Shopping, Going to work, Staying home, Driving. Nowhere is safe. Fans of the 2nd amendment think the answer to this is more guns and more active shooter training. They seem to prefer the "freedom" of the old American wild west where, as they imagine it, every real man had a gun and would travel. Such "freedom" is neither freedom nor free. There is no freedom in active shooter drills, hardened spaces and arming for the next threat. No state of existence can be free while its cost is a body count.
The Democrats control the White House, the House of Representatives and have a thin edge in the Senate. However tenuously, they hold the power to do something about America's mass murder problem. If they do not, they will have to accept blame for every subsequent mass shooting, just as much as the person who pulls the trigger.
Sometimes you can't appreciate what you have until you lose it or it is threatened. The next years will be interesting.