Over and Over Again

I’m sick of watching what has become of our country.  Mass slaughtering reduced to biblical rhetoric of good vs. evil, with responses of tougher immigration laws if the murderer is anyone of middle eastern descent and “thoughts and prayers” for the victims and their families if the assault is committed by a Caucasian nut job. 

Good vs. evil.  “May God be with you,” offered to the Texas town of the church shootings.  In a church of worship!  Where was God at that moment?  How can these incidents be reduced to the simplistic good vs. evil?

It plays into our psyche of “good guys” coming to the rescue, the rationalization that MORE guns are needed by the “good guys” to offset those carried by the “bad guys.”  Where is the Lone Ranger when you need him?  Even better, Superman!  The Texas Attorney General suggested that churches should consider armed worshipers.  This is a solution?

Let’s get serious about gun control once and for all.  If we had more restrictive gun ownership legislation after the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966, where would we be today?  It has to start sometime, and the moment has arrived to ban assault weapons.  Go a step further and require registration of weapons as we do motor vehicles.  Provide a government cash bounty for anyone turning in an assault weapon for a period of time, no questions asked.  Anyone in possession of such a weapon after the bounty period is breaking the law. 

This does not nullify the 2^nd amendment, but it brings it more into alignment with today’s weapon technology which the founding fathers could have never imagined.  If the NRA doesn’t like it, let them own muskets, the weapon of choice when the amendment was enacted.

Our gun violence and lax gun laws are the worst of developed countries. Many other countries just ban gun ownership and their lack of gun violence verses ours reflect that and cultural values as well.

And, please, the false equivalency argument of they’ll use trucks instead, so why shouldn’t we ban trucks is specious (as those who make the argument know).  Any politician who can say that with a straight face ought to be run out of office. But as the Texas massacre takes place on the heels of the horrid truck terrorist attack in Manhattan, NRA apologists are quick to make that facetious case.

Trump responded to the Texas massacre saying “I think that mental health is your problem here. We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries. But this isn’t a guns situation.”  Yes, mental health problems need to be simultaneously addressed, but it IS a guns “situation” as well.  And why did he genuflect to the NRA, rescinding a regulation that makes it harder for people with mental illness histories to purchase guns?

Our “leaders” must offer more than condolences and prayers to the thousands and thousands of families who have been impacted by gun violence and those who will be victims in the future. 

Las Vegas Forgotten Already

Buy guns, kill people, console the victims’ families, talk about legislation, forget and move on to the next news cycle, then repeat. 

Less than a month ago the Las Vegas massacre dominated the news, followed by talk of gun control regulation, an immediate increase in gun sales fearing the latter, and promises of at least regulating bump stocks that convert semi automatic weapons into machine guns . Now it seems like it never happened, 58 people killed, hundreds injured.  This is the pattern of the past. The NRA has puppet politicians well under control. 

Imagine if the automobile was just invented and people went out and bought them, no license or testing required, few traffic laws, and who needs stop signs and lights?  Autos still kill more people than guns, but those deaths now are nearly neck and neck.  We choose to regulate automobiles, testing and licenses required, registration so we can track who owns what and if someone buys or sells more than a certain number of autos each year, he/she is considered a dealer and another level of regulation is reached. 

Today, crazy people like Stephen Paddock can amass a war arsenal without any tracking information.  Regretfully this means giving up some privacy, but we give it up to drive a car, why not owning a gun? 

My entry after the San Bernardino tragedy almost two years ago (written during the heated election season, thus explaining its political bent) seems to be as relevant today so until the next inevitable incident, I repeat….

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

It Can’t Happen Here?

Unfortunately, the horror in San Bernardino has fed into all of this, “legitimizing” such dangerous rhetoric and escalating it to personal attacks on President Obama (who now has low polling numbers about keeping America “safe,” the exact inverse of what those numbers were after bin Laden was nailed) - and subsequent accusations that any call for stronger gun control laws is merely politicizing the San Bernardino tragedy.

But such calls have gone on for years with fierce Republican and NRA opposition.  I do not naively believe that better gun control laws and enforcement would magically eliminate such tragedies, especially in the short term.  But I do believe that the Second Amendment, which was written in the days of musket rifles and flintlock pistols, needs serious updating.

At that time, we needed an armed militia and also the founding fathers believed that an armed citizenry would be deterrent to the rise of a despotic government.  The world has changed since then, weapons of war unimaginable to our forefathers, and, now, mostly in the hands of the military and law enforcement.  To make some of the same weapons legitimately available to the citizenry no longer serves the purpose of protecting us from a despotic government as the military will always have superior weaponry (is an converted AR-15 adequate protection against a tank?). The proliferation of automatic weapons just further endangers us all, giving us a false sense of security by just having one in our closet.

No, this is a country of laws and checks and balances and we have to depend on our tried-and-true institutions as well as the much maligned (by Trump in particular) fourth estate to keep our government transparent and trustworthy. If some fringe element threatens us in our homes and public places, we need better intelligence to prevent it and rapid response law enforcement to protect us.

Fully automatic weapons (ones that operate as a machine gun) need to be banned, and guns should be registered just like a car, an equally dangerous thing.  That means getting a license, passing a rigorous background check and license renewals (a gun owner having to report if it is sold, just like a car).  Guns for self defense, hunting and target practicing are understandable but how can one argue that an automatic weapon is needed?  Certainly not for hunting (where is the sport in that?).  Do we really want our neighbors to be totting an automatic weapon citing Florida’s ambiguous “stand your ground” law as a justification?

Will that keep guns out of the hands of the “bad guys” as the Republicans like to call them?  No, but it’s a start and of course the devil is in the details of how such gun control is administered.  Senseless to get further into it here – I’m merely expounding an opinion.

Our Gun Culture

We are addicted to guns.

Now this horror in Las Vegas. 

Other developed countries have more sensible laws. “The United States’ gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other high-income countries” -- The Guardian:  So, America, this is how other countries do gun control. 

It’s not only the laws, it’s the culture.  In what country, other than the U.S. would you see a politician brandishing a gun, like Alabama’s Roy Moore proudly did, and then get endorsed by its leader? 

After the terrorist attacks in Paris Trump said that it "would've been a much different situation if the city had looser gun laws” meaning if everyone had a gun the shooter might have been taken down earlier.  Makes a lot of sense, arm everyone and that will lead to less shooting.

I wonder how Roy Moore’s cap gun would have stood up in the Las Vegas shooting, or anyone’s hand gun for that matter pitted against someone with a military grade automatic weapon firing from far away, and way above. 

After Representative Steve Scalise was shot last year when a gunman targeted a congressional baseball practice I wrote the following about gun control:  unless we all pull together the subsequent dialogue can go two divergent ways.  One could lead us down the path of greater authoritarianism and the call for arming more citizens (although a greater police presence is going to be necessary when many of our Representatives are in public venues).  The other path could call for the long-needed ban of military grade weapons.  Are we all supposed to be armed with AR-15s on our baseball fields?  I’m no Pollyanna and know that such a ban would have little impact on what happens in the near future.  I’m thinking long term.  This is not about challenging the 2nd Amendment, and it is not about Republican vs. Democrat.  It’s about common sense banning military weapons, doing comprehensive background checks, expanding our treatment of mental illness, and developing better early warning signs of mentally disturbed people from social networks and prior arrests.

Senseless to repeat everything I’ve written about this self-inflicted plague, our love of guns.  It starts with more sensible laws, better education, and a change in our thinking that having a gun somehow symbolizes freedom and machismo.

The key word index to this blog says it’s 19^th time I’ve written about the topic.  With each outrage I feel the urge to say my piece.   This particular entry after the Orlando shooting summarized some of them.

Perhaps we will finally have the wisdom to approach this problem sensibly as have other developed nations.  What politician has the courage and is willing to lead?  Although he's taken contributions from the NRA, I nominate John McCain for the role. It is time to stand up for what is right. He's respected on both aisles, and an about-face would be a fitting legacy. "Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

Flag Day Despoiled

I was going to write a piece about Flag Day with photos.

Now, the depressing news about the shooting at a baseball practice field of Republican members of the congressional baseball team leads to other thoughts.  Thankfully no one was killed other than the gunman.  Good riddance to him. And thankfully the brave Capitol Police were there to take him down.

But will this be a time that we pull together long after the incident?  Or will it just pull us further apart?

I’ve heard comments such as Representative Mo Brooks’  “It’s not easy to take when you see people around you being shot and you don’t have a weapon yourself.”  According to initial reports the deranged gunman had a military assault style weapon.  One can understand the helplessness and the impotence felt by Rep. Brooks.  It is an outrage that we cannot even enjoy our national pastime without feeling threatened this way.  And it is an outrage that political divisiveness should lead to any kind of violence.

But unless we all pull together the subsequent dialogue can go two divergent ways.  One could lead us down the path of greater authoritarianism and the call for arming more citizens (although a greater police presence is going to be necessary when many of our Representatives are in public venues).  The other path could call for the long-needed ban of military grade weapons.  Are we all supposed to be armed  with AR-15s on our baseball fields?  I’m no Pollyanna and know that such a ban would have little impact on what happens in the near future.  I’m thinking long term.  This is not about challenging the 2^nd Amendment, and it is not about Republican vs. Democrat.  It’s about common sense banning military weapons, doing comprehensive background checks, expanding our treatment of mental illness, and developing better early warning signs of mentally disturbed people from social networks and prior arrests.

I worry about how this horrible incident will move the country in the future.  Will we come together, E pluribus unum, or be driven apart, politicizing this horror?  I look to the flag and wonder and hope.

Another Day, Another Horror

A mass shooting at an airport, the denial by the President Elect that his “victory” had anything to do with Russia’s revenge plot against Hillary Clinton (even though he, himself, used the very fake news Russia implanted) – just an ordinary day in the U. S. of A.  The normalization of such events inures us to it all.  How much can we absorb each day of reports of violence and a President-to-Be who is consumed by his monolithic view of how events affect our perception of HIM rather than how events (such as the Russian involvement in our election) impact the nation Putin prefers HIM to lead?  The distrust of Clinton that was baked into the election by Russian hacking and Trump’s demagoguery was probably enough to shift those relatively small margins in WI, MI, and PA that gave him the Electoral lead. 

Trump’s call for “Congressional Hearings” (sorry, wrong venue, Donald, try the FBI) to investigate why NBC allegedly received intelligence information before he did, reveals his world view.  He disparages “intelligence” and our intelligence professionals on the one hand (“I’m smarter than all the Generals”), but wants to first receive what he considers misinformation before a network against which he has a vendetta.  Look forward to government by retaliation.  As he would Tweet, NOT NICE!

As to gun violence, the ubiquity of guns, and our failure to connect that issue with mental health challenges and intelligence needed to keep nut jobs off our planes (even allowing them to check weapons in their luggage), there is just growing legislative intransigence.  After Sandy Hook one would think we’d have stricter gun laws.  Instead, the nation is gravitating to “open carry” including such a movement in my state, Florida.  Its insanity, especially with Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.  I’ve written about gun control ad nauseam, so no sense repeating everything here.  And, no, I’m not for repealing the 2^nd amendment and neither was Hillary Clinton as accused by Trump.

Will Trump ever get serious beyond his Tweets?  His actions even before taking the Office of the Presidency makes one already think about future impeachment on the grounds of Treason (giving aid and comfort to the enemies of our country).

These were my thoughts as I made coffee this morning only to discover I was so deep in thought (sort of writing this entry in my mind) that I had forgotten to put the coffee pot under the drip so I found myself in damage control, going through half a roll of paper toweling, moping the counter and the floor: a microcosm of the mess we’re in.