A Name By Any Other Name

By BARRY FRIEDMAN

First this:

Elly, Claire, Porter, Brittany, Larissa, Peter, Emma, Hadley, Matt, Amy, Andy, Charlie, Libby, Allison, Jordan, Mary Morgan, Chad, Shannon, Lauren, Kristen, Jeff Kristen, Ashley, Jason, William, Tyler, Charles, Moore, Shelley, Meg, Kate, Will, Haley, Danley, Gabriel, Daniel, Rachel, Annie, Abel, Lara, Stephanie, Paul, Brian, Michelle, Caroline, Catherine, Caroline, Anne, Michael, David, Morgan, Adam, Luke, Lee, Jay, Wendy, Michelle, Robin, William, Stephen, Tara, Christine, Elijah, Blaise, Abigail, Marcela, Jack, Anna-Michael, Molly, Katy, Jim, Carey, Jenna, Ben, Jordan, Hannah, Eliza Rose, James Rex, John David, Annaliese, Cal, Lauren Rebecca, Victor, Matt, Alex, Kelsey, Nicolas, Matthew, Duncan, William, Robert, Sally, William, Jed, Jordan, Jason, James, Tagg, Ben, Matt, Craig, Josh, Brian, John, Christopher, Carrie, Daniella, Amanda, Anthony, Dominick, Breck, Elizabeth, Alexandra, Claude, Richard, Isabella, Laurel, Meghan, Lindsey, Ryan, Duncan, Bridget, Patrick, Tre, Troy, McDaniel, Caroline, Margaret, Tucker, Abigail, Annalise, and Ava.

It’s not what you think. I’ll explain in a moment.

When 10 people in Buffalo, New York, were killed on Saturday, May 14, it was three days before my Tuesday deadline for this magazine’s June 15 issue. I had a piece already written — the one about Malcom Nance — and ready to go, but knew I should say something about the murders at the Tops Friendly Market. It was too big a story, too horrendous. The Nance piece could clearly wait. By Monday, May 16, however, I decided not to because I figured by the time you read it, it would be old news.

I was right.

Nineteen children and two teachers were murdered in Uvalde, Texas, 10 days later.

Buffalo was old news.

For that matter, so were Orlando, Charleston, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook. …

It doesn’t really matter when you write about gun violence in America. The news will always find you.

“I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas No. 2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans. @NRA”

That’s a tweet from Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) in 2015.

Hilarious, isn’t he?

He was re-elected in 2019.

Salvador Ramos, who was 18, accepted the governor’s challenge and bought 1,600 rounds of ammunition and 50 high-capacity magazines.

In Texas, you see, you can buy a rifle at 18 — and that includes semiautomatic AR-15s.

He then walked into Robb Elementary School.

But he didn’t kill Audrey Abbott, the governor’s adopted daughter, on May 24.

One person he allegedly did kill: Amerie Jo Garza, Angel Garza’s daughter.

A name by any other name.

Millions of American schoolchildren did not have to hide under their desks on May 24, and not because they were in schools with only one entrance, or because good guys with guns protected them, or because their parents didn’t allow them to watch video games or insisted they go to church, or because a conservative judge issued a ruling somewhere against a petty criminal — it’s because those children were lucky. Someone who shouldn’t be within an area code of an automatic weapon (but has one because the GOP in this country has neither the inclination nor the collective balls to prevent it) decided not to walk into the their fourth-grade classroom and murder them.

Four days after the carnage in Uvalde, the National Rifle Association held its annual meeting down the road in Houston (and, yes, it was too much to ask it to suspend or cancel it — think of the vendors). Donald Trump read the names (badly) of the Uvalde children murdered. The NRA stage manager decided to have the sound of a gong accompany the president.

It was ghoulish.

The former president, whose tone-deafness reaches new lows as his dotage explodes, said of the horror, “And while those he slaughtered are now with God in heaven, he will be eternally damned to burn in the fires of hell.”

And the crowd applauded.

Of course they did.

They prefer retribution over prevention.

It’s more manly.

And then the former president, soaking in the adulation — hand to God — shimmied on stage.

Speakers at the event talked about societal decay in America, as if a trans teen in Indiana who wants to play field hockey or needs to pee is the problem.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) talked about the “act of murder in video games” as the cause for “culture failing.” It is the pictures of guns that are blowing out the brains of 11-year-olds, you see, and not the bullets from semi-automatic weapons.

I saw a news story some years back in which Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, said he wouldn’t consider restrictive gun legislation until 50,000 American children were killed by guns.

Thing is, he never said it. The story was satire.

There is no number of murdered children who would make him, or the NRA, consider such a thing.

About those names at the start of this article — they are not the names of children who were murdered by gunfire in America.

They’re all alive.

You can easily find their names on the websites of the rich and powerful. In television ads, they appear laughing and joking, literally and figuratively bolstering pro-family values.

They are the children of United States Senate Republicans.

None of those senators had to plan their funerals.

(Twenty-three hours after this column was filed, four people were shot dead in Tulsa by a man who bought a semi-automatic rifle 21 hours after this column was filed.)

Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. In addition to “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Road Comic,” “Four Days and a Year Later” and “The Joke Was On Me,” his first novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages,” a book about the worst love story ever, was published by Balkan Press in February. See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.

From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2022

Populist.com