We Need an Emmett Till Moment

 

     Right after the Robb Elementary shooting nine months ago, CNN commissioned a demonstration as to the sheer, destructive power of the AR 15 using ballistics gelatin. After the segment, Jake Tapper talked to CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to further explain the impact an AR15 round has on a human body.

     He went into cavitation, or when a bullet creates a wound channel so wide that it collapses in on itself. It's permanent, catastrophic, often fatal, damage, especially when the round enters a child's body. Their organs are smaller and closer together and, in that horrifying scenario, we're talking about damage that's more than catastrophic. We're talking about more than just cavitation. We're talking about organ vaporization.

     Dr. Gupta had also reminded us that when the police entered that slaughterhouse at Robb Elementary that rooms 111 and 112 had been turned into, at least one child was actually decapitated and that DNA had to be taken from the parents to identify their childrens' bodies. They simply didn't know whose body parts belonged to whom.

     Then Gupta said we should have "an Emmett Till moment".

 

     Till, of course, was the 14 year-old child who was visiting family in Mississippi in 1955 when he was murdered after being tortured for allegedly whistling at a white woman. It can plausibly be said that Till's murder was one of the catalysts of the Civil Right movement.

     But that wouldn't have happened if his grieving mother, Mamie Till, hadn't famously made the decision she had. She insisted that Emmett's body be openly displayed, in an open casket, so the whole world could see what had been done to him.

     Whether or not she knew it, Americans have always been a people with a very strong visual sense. We tend to rally around an iconic image, some perfectly representative picture that gives a visual sense of what we're dealing with. A visceral, perfectly-timed and artfully representative image can galvanize a people, give a face to an atrocity and even change hearts and minds en masse.

     This is what Gupta was getting at in the essay he'd written on CNN's website that day (it's since been updated to include the Covenant school shooting of last Monday).

     There was a huge kerfuffle in the gun community about showing the photos of the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting and for good reason. They knew damned good and well that if those pictures were released, it would finally rally the American people who would then exert unprecedented pressure on Republican lawmakers to pass gun safety measures.

     And that's what we need to do to break the ice, the permafrost of Republican foot-dragging in helping Democrats pass gun safety measures that are actually worth a shit. Making background checks more stringent, passing red flag laws are all good and well but they're just a start. When Congress and Bill Clinton enacted an assault weapons ban in 1994, gun deaths went down by 43% in the first year. When Bush let the assault weapons ban lapse in 2004, gun deaths went up by 243% in the first year.

     And this is what Republicans don't want you to remember, that gun control works, that Australia hasn't had a mass shooting since 1996 when they enacted some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, with a conservative government. Their gun buyback program took over half a million guns off the streets, further ensuring the safety of Australians. They don't want you to know that gun control works.

     And that's also exactly why they don't want you to see the crime scene photos after a school shooting or any mass shooting involving an AR15. It would have to be done with the permission of the parents but I'm sure quite a few of them would consent to it. Fred Guitenberg comes to mind.

     If anything would be a tipping point that would permanently change the gun control debate, that would be it. But Republicans, who historically are always trying to hide whatever dangers face Americans whether it's COVID, food and drug safety, don't want you to see the consequence of loosening gun control laws. This is also why they never want you to see the consequences of war because they're not interested in your informed opinion or protest or opposition to their agenda.

     All children want to do is go to school, learn some lessons and get home alive in one piece. Instead, they're learning active shooter drills and, after some maniac shoots up their school with an AR15, they're not even getting home alive or in one piece.