Listen here: Kelly Clarkson is a icon, a legend and an idol (in various ways).
On Sunday at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, Kelly Clarkson opened up the show with a touching and moving monologue touching on the tragedy that took place in Santa Fe, Texas last Friday. She urged that instead of a traditional moment of silence, that there be a moment of change, a moment of action. Fighting back tears, she pleaded with those at home and in the audience to do something different other than just pray for the victims and their families.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=B41XUP-ivL8
However, some “journalist” and I use that term loosely, from the New York Times published this hit piece on the one and only Kelly Clarkson, taking her to task for being a proud gun owner. They use quotes from interviews she did in 2012, well before she had children of her own. Furthermore, the entirety of the piece couldn’t determine whether Kelly’s speech was supposed to be moving, impassioned, or question the motive behind it.
Regardless of my opinions on guns, I think it’s safe to say that common sense gun laws need to be enacted. So does Kelly Clarkson. It doesn’t matter where she’s from (Texas, in case you didn’t know) but she knows one thing: too many children are being taken from their parents for no reason.
School/mass shootings in general, are increasingly more and more common, and as a country we’ve been desensitized to it because of how disturbingly normal it’s become. While I do commend the group of student leaders who banded together after the shootings in Parkland, I think it’s up to the next generation to enact the change that Kelly Clarkson talks about.
The issue of guns have been debated since the days of the Bill of Rights and will continue to rage on. People love their guns and people also love their families and their children. There are some who treat their guns like children I’m sure.
Newsflash: NO ONE IS TRYING TO TAKE AWAY THE GUNS YOU ALREADY HAVE.
All us “liberals” and “snowflakes” and every other term you’ve labeled gun-reform thinkers want is sensible gun laws. It should be HARDER for people to have access to guns, or even bullets. Their should be stricter requirements to purchase a gun. There should be mental health checks. If we need to pass a test to get our driver’s license, why can’t we issue a test for potential gun owners. Let’s stop allowing people to sell their guns to other people PRIVATELY.
Gun owners are VERY transparent when it comes to telling people that they’re proud gun owners, but they fail to understand that all people want on the opposing side is true transparency.
It’s futile to change the mind of gun loving, Second Amendment diehards, but for those that are on the fence or those that have to think twice about gun reform and what people really want, remember that every day that goes by where WEAPONS are easily accessible to other human beings so much so without stricter requirements, is another day that a life is lost.
Guns aid people in killing other people, but if we make it harder for those same people to get access to guns, then that may save a life or two.
Thank you Kelly Clarkson for speaking up and speaking out on a topic SO divisive and so heated. You will forever be America’s “Idol” and a true sweetheart.
Featured image via Becky Sullivan / CC BY
