BANG! Bang! Bang!’ Not once, not thrice either, but dozens of rounds, from a lethal AR-15 assault rifle! Not in the wilds of Africa or a barbaric area like the present Syria, but in Boulder, 45 kilometres from Denver, in the Unites States, purportedly the most civilized nation in the world!
Immediately after the horrific shooting, President Biden called for stricter gun control measures! Even as the world laughs at a country which reportedly has the best security systems in the world, still allowing citizens the use of guns to defend themselves, the other question in everybody’s mind is, ‘Is gun control needed, or hate control?’
In most wars when enemies surrender, all the arms of the soldiers are taken away, and today, as the world looks at these shootings, lynching and acts of violence shouldn’t it be the voicers of hate-speech who should be silenced? The gun barks when hate presses the trigger! But who causes the trigger to be pressed? Who causes mobs to lynch innocents? Who causes women to be treated worse than sex slaves?
You don’t need me to spell out the answer! You need only look into the pages of the newspaper, to read political statements used to inflame one community against another, white skin against black skin and various other ‘oh so easy’ methods to garner votes! In Bengal we have a Mamata Banerjee, who tells her voters not to vote for the ‘outsider!’
Outsider? In the old western movies, I used to watch, and still love, you see the hero, standing on ‘Main Street’ ready to shoot at the bully.
“Hey outlaw, there’s room for only one of us in this one-horse town!” And looks like nothing has changed in the world from the days of the wild west to the present days of civilized behaviour, except, here, the good guy doesn’t win anymore! “Ye gads!”
The bystanders shout, “The outlaw shot our hero dead!” The one with the vilest words, and speech full of racial and communal hate wins! At least he or she is winning till now.
But should we allow this to continue? Can’t we see the effect these speeches and comments are causing all over? Are we waiting, like in the westerns for Mr Sheriff to ride in with his posse of deputies and bring law and order back? Well, the sad fact is the sheriffs of the world, and his deputies, the lawmen, who are most of the judges of today have become weak.
In most countries they have succumbed to the trigger-happy hate mongers. Wake up my friend! It’s you who can stop this.
It’s you and I who can say ‘No!” to such political leaders with the power of our vote, in allowing such trigger-happy political parties coming to power. Otherwise, there will be more, ‘bang, bangs!’ right outside our very doorsteps..!
