Tyehimba Jess recites at the Literary Death Match in Champaign Saturday. |
You can’t drive down to Champaign without loving America just a little bit more. All that open space. The miles of brown September corn. The decaying red barns. The communications towers against big blue skies. The fact that the crazy 55 mph speed limit finally went back up to 70, a sign that our nation still retains the ability to repair our errors, at least the minor ones.
There are, of course, ominous signs as well—literal signs, like the “TRUMP-PENCE” billboard in one farmer’s field. Or another announcing “GunsSaveLife.com,” an Illinois pro-guns-everywhere group formed, apparently, because the NRA just isn’t busy enough. The website’s top story is headlined “ARE NO GUNS MALLS SAFE?” and begins “Are America’s malls with ‘NO GUNS’ polices safe for you and your kids and grandkids to visit? That’s a great question given a pair of Muslim terror attacks a week apart at malls that shared policies and/or signage that prohibits law-abiding good guys from carrying guns on their premises . . .”
I somehow screw up the courage to go to Northbrook Court without an AR-15 (which, I suppose I must point out, Maxon Shooter Supply notwithstanding, I could easily and legally buy if I choose to, which I don’t). But I understand others find this prospect terrifying.
Give GunsSaveLife.com credit for moxie. Guns actually kill people, and when you look at the stats—hard to do, with Congress obstructing research into gun violence—you see that states with looser gun laws suffer more random gun violence. Because terror attacks—even two a week—though scary, are exceedingly rare compared with the daily slaughter that having handguns everywhere encourages.
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