Mattox Live

Fallacy – noun – a false or mistaken idea

I’m sitting in a coffee shop trying to organize and focus all the thoughts jumbled around in my head. My husband got to experience what I call my occasional “train wreck of thoughts” yesterday, when over dinner I jumped from one topic to another with no good segue. Just as things came to the surface of my mind, they spilled out of my mouth.

For writing purposes, I feel the need to find a common thread, and while staring out of the windows at cars passing one word brought everything in my mind to one focus: fallacy. 

Monday, I heard a big fallacy over and over again. “I never thought it could happen here.”

Another school shooting. This time in Nashville. Six killed. Thankfully, Metro Nashville PD trained with the knowledge that it could happen here, and they acted with efficiency. While six should have never died, at least it was kept to six. But in the aftermath, the shattered realization that it could happen here. Because it did.

Thoughts and prayers. Another fallacy. Belief that thoughts and prayers alone will fix this issue is mistaken. Belief that thoughts and prayers are useless is equally as mistaken. As the recipient of people’s thoughts and prayers, I can tell you with complete and total certainty: they work and they help and they mean everything. But they can’t fix it all without action from our side. All the thoughts and prayers that have gone up for me in the last six months would not have taken my cancer away without my willingness to do what doctors asked of me. I had to do my part.

Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?
James 2:20

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. A third fallacy. Guns make it a lot easier to kill people, and do it faster. You do a lot more damage with a high powered gun than you do a sword. Guns ARE a problem. But guns aren’t a problem in the hands of, well, most people. There’s still more good people than bad, and in the right hands guns are just a piece of equipment. And as such, in a very black-and-white way, yes, that original statement is factual. Sure. But we all know, this world is full of shades of gray… and those shades of gray are where fallacies lie. Because people kill people… most often with guns. What do we need to do to keep guns out of the hands of the people who are set on killing others? 

It can absolutely happen here, there, anywhere. Thoughts and prayers are powerful tools that MUST be augmented by true action. And gun ownership reform needs to happen. And it needs to have happened before Monday. Before Uvalde. Before all the mass shootings.

So what action is there to be taken? I’m as guilty as anyone with the idea of, “My voice won’t matter.” But I also know that every drop in the ocean makes up the ocean, and every drop matters. Every single voice matters. 

Its going to take our governmental leadership to enact policies for dealing with gun control, and its going to take every single voice to push for it to happen. To set into motion the groundwork to keep guns out of the hands of those who would walk into a school and shoot a child MULTIPLE TIMES. Because, yes, guns in the hands of the majority of the public is fine. But one high powered gun in the hands of a person set on destruction…

An analogy. I met with my radiologist today for the first time. The third phase of my cancer battle will start soon in the form of radiation. In radiation, ALL the cells in my left breast will be hit and sustain some damage. But it’s what it is going to take to make as sure as possible that all the cancer cells are eradicated. The majority of my cells are there to keep me alive… but it only takes one or two cancer cells – the “bad guys” – to mount up a situation that could kill me. 

Should I NOT get radiation because a majority of my cells are good? Should we NOT put into place policies to help keep guns out of “the bad guys” because most gun owners would never use them maliciously? The good cells will regenerate and bounce back. Most gun owners will get to keep owning guns. But we have to do SOMETHING to protect the majority. We have to do something to protect our children. We have to do something to LIVE. 

So it’s time to speak up. It’s time to let our lawmakers know better gun laws need to be in place. No more parents should drop their kids off at school only to never see them again. 

“It won’t happen here.” 

Fallacy.

It will unless changes happen.