Procrastination means “the act of delaying or postponing something,” and usually, this word is utilized in the context of academic work that has yet to be done, frequently uttered by students in a voice that is resigned or hysterical. There’s always a deadline that us students are rushing and cramming to meet, and if we are skilled enough in this practice of procrastination, we manage to turn in our assignments exactly at or before 11:59 p.m.
On the other hand, however, there is no established deadline for the discussion of controversial issues. It has an indefinite and prolonged lifespan that the players in the arena of politics use to their utmost advantage. And it is extremely unsettling to me that the people we expect and hope to actually get business done, the eminent leaders of our country, procrastinate like school students on dealing with matters that are critical to our nation’s safety.
With the tragedy that occurred in Las Vegas on the night of October 1 came the almost inevitable topic of gun control in America. The Democrats, of course, expressed their condolences, but they did not hesitate to swiftly bring up the underlying issue and cause of the shooting as being the inadequacy of gun control policies. And causing no shock to us all, the Republicans retaliated with a classic sigh and shake of the head, as if asking the Democrats, “Have you all no shame?” It was a scolding that attempted to make the other party seem heartless, tactless and downright unsympathetic to the tragedy that had just so freshly occurred.
At times like this, the excuse that the right uses time and time again to avoid the possibility of stricter gun control laws is that it is much too early to be discussing such a sensitive issue. They say it is not the right time, that we should save political talk for later, that we are being too callous to the families of the victims. But tactfulness is second to action. I am not proposing that we forget to empathize with and comfort the victims’ families, but that we prioritize this sense of urgency before we lose steam, before we come to view shootings as nothing new and before we get comfortable with stagnancy. With these ideas in mind, we cannot allow the opportunity for change to slip through our grasp.
If the right time is not now, how long do we have to wait? How high do the numbers of the dead and injured have to rise, and how much more desensitized do we have to become to acts of terrorism, for gun supporters to come to the obvious realization that measures must be taken for this senseless violence to come to a permanent end? We have seen from its history of inactivity on this matter that to the government, the deadline is not when tragic deaths occur; however, it is painfully apparent that the deadline should be exactly then — when incidents such as the shootings in Las Vegas, in Orlando, at Sandy Hook Elementary and in numerous other locations around the U.S. cause human lives to be lost.
I do not want to say that these horrific incidents occurred in order to cause a change, but instead that the lack of change caused these tragedies. It’s clear to me that we need to be working towards the effort of prevention. And if the government cannot, at the very least, even lay down the issue on the table for discussion right now, after 58 people have died and hundreds more have been injured, what is it going to take?
We are seriously running out of time, and extensions should never be granted for those who procrastinate.
Contact Betty Lee at bitlee ‘at’ stanford.edu.