In 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act. It created a benefits system for retired, jobless and disabled people, as well as dependent mothers and children. Benefits are funded through a payroll tax levied on workers and employers. It is arguably the most successful, beneficially effective social program ever instituted by the U.S. government. It covers all the bases for those in need at times when the need is dire, urgent, and apparent. Social security and basic rights as American citizens are duly recognized and fittingly protected.
Today, the American people are in dire need again. An apparent and urgent need and basic right as American citizens must be duly recognized and fittingly protected again. Against the daily gun violence in America.
In the same fashion and with the same security and protection as the Social Security Act of 1935, I propose the Personal Security Act of 2023.
Due to this daily crisis in America, every citizen, man, woman and child is exposed to the threat of random gun related death and/or injury equally as much as a combat soldier. This is not a partisan or political issue. It’s a life and death issue that affects everyone. If Congress cannot find it within themselves, within their individual and collective conscience to absolutely, unanimously, agree that there should be new and more restrictive gun laws to protect us citizens — we the people — from this daily onslaught of random gun violence, then maybe they should vote to agree to pay for our “hazardous duty” or combat pay for whenever we step outside of our homes onto the streets and into our malls, theaters, schools, churches, places of business, etc., in this great and free country of ours. Maybe they should vote to pay for our random gun-related violence medical and rehabilitation bills, our prosthetics and physical therapy treatment bills, our mental health and trauma bills ... our funerals. Just like they do for our veterans and wounded and killed soldiers.
Maybe there should be a dedicated new section in the Arlington National Cemetery for our fallen citizens, our “brothers not in arms,” to random gun violence.
No, but we’ll offer mental health services to the shooters and would-be shooters. And pay for their attorneys.
We, because Congress has failed to protect us from random gun-related violence on the streets of our American cities and communities by not properly and logically addressing this perennial and misunderstood Second Amendment gun issue, are all now combat soldiers operating in hot kill zones.
Sadly, it’s too late to control the guns. That bullet has already been fired: It’s the “shot heard around the world.” No red flag laws, bump stock laws, 30 round magazine laws, background check laws, age limit laws, military assault weapon restriction laws, etc., will work now. Anyone who wants a gun can get one. There are already enough guns floating around America for every man, woman and child twice over.
At this point, maybe we all should have guns, no restrictions, to help equalize the killing field. But that would be crazy, right?
Random gun violence in America is a fact. It’s here to stay. If Congress can’t agree to prevent it proactively, up front, which our leaders and lawmakers obviously can’t, maybe they will agree to address the issue on the backside, after the fact ... after the deaths and injuries, after the mental and physical trauma that spreads from the victims into their families and friends and communities. Into the collective psyche and conscience of America. Maybe they will agree to vote and pass legislation to help cover all the bases for those American citizens, we American citizens, in our new time of dire, apparent, and urgent need. Our clear and present danger of walking the streets of America exposed to random gun-related violence, trauma and death.
Like combat soldiers in the war zone that America has become, and due directly, personally and collectively to those and their inaction in the legislative body, our Congress, sworn to protect the American people, maybe they can find it within themselves to vote to pay us for our risk of living in America ... and for our funerals. It’s the least they can do.
The difference between the Social Security Act of 1935 and my proposed Personal Security Act of 2023, is that we, the people, should not have to pay for our own medical bills and funerals through a payroll tax levied on workers and employers. Or for our own “hazardous duty pay” or combat pay just for living in America. These bills and entitlements should be paid directly by taxes levied directly on the NRA, gun and ammunition manufacturers, gun sellers, gun show promoters, gun lobbies and other gun rights groups and organizations.
Pass the Personal Security Act of 2023.
John Kushma
John Kushma is a senior consultant at John Kushma Associates, a communication consultancy. He holds a degree in Geology and has worked as a petroleum geologist and oceanographer. He has spent the later part of his career as a risk management specialist in simulation training technology and counter-terrorism.
