Not a Time for only Thoughts and Prayers

Las Vegas slaughtering, shootings in schools, houses of worship (let’s not forget Sutherland Springs, Texas and the Charleston, SC shootings) and now eleven people killed and six injured when a gunman attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday. We’re told (by our President) that the greatest threat to our homeland security is immigrants and foreign born terrorists.  Meanwhile, what do all these horrific events have in common?  Most are by hate-filled home-grown white nationalists, with large gun collections, frequently brandishing automatic weapons for maximum slaughtering effect.

Is it a surprise that the Pittsburgh killer blames Jews for helping migrant caravan ‘invaders’?   Who first pointed out the so called caravans had some “bad hombres and people of middle eastern descent?” 

Apparently the gunman used an assault rifle and three handguns, among his collection of 21 registered guns. But he was not a big fan of Trump as he felt the President did not go far enough and he was surrounded by Jews.  On the other hand, pipe bomber Cesar Sayoc felt that Trump’s rhetoric was just right.  Our system fails to ring a bell when one person owns 21 guns?

No matter, it’s pretty clear that the political discourse in which Trump has been engaged, particularly at his Nuremberg style rallies, foments division, violence and is intended to feed the fragile ego of a demagogue.   

Instead of building walls at the border, we need to build legislative walls around gun access.  Will it eradicate such shootings, no, but over time it is one of the building blocks of making such incidents less likely.  I’ve written dozens of times about how this can be done. I think the best summary is in this particular entry.

Win the Mid-Terms and begin to challenge the NRA.  Haven’t we had enough of this?

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press

How about by Presidential Executive Order?  Or just behavior?

I’m still recoiling from the murders of five employees of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis including a feature reporter, Rob Hiaasen.  Hiaasen’s career began at the Palm Beach Post, our local paper.  We all feel a personal connection. Writers there remember him and one, Howard Goodman, has written the definitive article on the incident: The targeting of journalists has to end

As Representative Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said on CNN “This president plays with fire. He has deliberately demonized the press and journalists. To call them the enemy of the people is a remarkable statement from the head of our government. And that puts every journalist at risk. Now, he didn’t do what happened yesterday in Annapolis, but he certainly helped create a climate … where it’s fair game to go after the press. And where does that end? And that’s what I worry about, that sooner or later it leads to this kind of tragedy.”

This is essentially reiterated in Goodman’s article:  “No one has inflamed the present atmosphere more than he, this man who occupies the highest office in our land. He has set a tone which he feeds at every rally and almost every day on Twitter.”

“I am not blaming him for Thursday’s tragedy in Annapolis. But I do charge him with injecting a sense of hatred into the soul of this nation that journalists do not deserve and which — in a country with more guns than people — may all too easily turn into bloodshed.”

However, is it no wonder?  Consider what has come before:

"Never forget. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it."  -- Richard Nixon to his national security adviser Henry Kissinger in a taped 1972 Oval Office conversation

“I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” --- Donald J. Trump

“The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence, and no hard work. You’re the opposition party. Not the Democratic Party. You’re the opposition party. The media’s the opposition party.”   --- Stephen Bannon

And the award for the most disingenuous goes to Kellyanne Conway:  “You [the press] always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

We have looked and found the heart of darkness.

This is where the lines converge, a 2^nd amendment run amuck and the perpetual debasing of the 1^st amendment, lambasting the press.  Until we can get our priorities straight, expect more gun violence and subsequent “thoughts and prayers.”

Journalists must be protected.

Bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, one in February and the other in May.  The Journalist Protection Act would make it a federal crime of certain attacks on those reporting the news. They’ve merely been “referred to committees on the Judiciary”:

Sponsor:              Rep. Swalwell, Eric [D-CA-15] (Introduced 02/05/2018)

Committees:      House - Judiciary

Latest Action:    House - 02/05/2018 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Sponsor:              Sen. Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT] (Introduced 05/24/2018)

Committees:      Senate - Judiciary

Latest Action:    Senate - 05/24/2018 Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Which will pass first, this Act or a Trump appointment to the Supreme Court?  As our 1^st amendment is undermined, and any action on the banning assault weapons unlikely, what kind of a nation are we becoming?

For an answer, the cautionary words of Mahatma Gandhi, captured in art by Jani Leinonen, “Your Beliefs” ---

Your beliefs become your thoughts,

Your thoughts become your words,

Your words become your actions,

Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your values,

Your values become your destiny.

Memorial Day and Gun Violence

I conflate the two now.

 

In the past, I’ve written about Memorial Day and our soldiers who have died defending our country, although lamenting about how we’ve turned it into a sales “holiday” for mattresses and cars. 

That should be the worst of it.  Now we should also remember our teachers and students who have “fallen in battle” thanks to the NRA and our so called leadership acting as a facilitator.

The most recent shooting at a Santa Fe, TX school was not with an automatic weapon but an equally deadly hand gun and shotgun. 

These guns were taken from the shooter’s father.

It brings up the obvious question of responsibility.  Should the father be held liable?  Or society?  Both of course.

Just so I get statistics right, I turn to Fact Check: In general, the overall number of people (31) and the number of students (26) killed in school shootings through 18 May 2018 was greater than the number of military personnel killed in combat zones (13). If all military deaths (including accidental training deaths) are counted, then that number (42) exceeds the total number of school shooting deaths (31).

But the precise numbers are irrelevant.  Gun violence, now prevalent in our schools, is intolerable in a civilized society.  Any society. All these weapons were "born to kill."

I’ve now written dozens of times about gun control and in particular the need to outlaw military type weapons, institute stringent background checks, age limits, etc., all the usual ideas and have seen the usual push backs to the same. 

I’ve also (not uniquely) suggested that firearms be regulated in the same way automobiles are, requiring registration and tracking when one is sold.

I go back to this argument as it is more of a total solution than any others. 

There are of course persuasive arguments against the bureaucracy of establishing a Federal or State system of a “Bureau of Firearms Control.”  Expensive.  Loss of freedom, Big brother watching, etc. etc.  But we tolerate those for automobiles, which also includes testing, insurance, inspection, etc.  We do so for the greater good of society.  We establish laws governing their use and prosecute when those laws are broken, even by generally “law abiding citizens.”  Gun ownership advocates make virtual talking robot arguments that gun laws only hurt the “good” people while “evil” ones ignore them and thus, we should have fewer gun laws.  Talk about circular logic.

We take off our shoes at airports because someone tried to blow up a plane with a shoe. My constitutional rights allow me to wear shoes!

Annual gun deaths are now approaching those caused by motor vehicle incidents (the latter declining and the former steadily increasing).

Getting to the difficult part, implementation.

First, indeed institute stringent background checks, age limit laws, and ban the use of military style weapons.

Secondly, as Congress now sees fit to increase our national debt, go further and institute a Federal program for buying back weapons voluntarily surrendered, with higher premiums for military style weapons.  Pay fair price.  Return them no questions asked for a specified grace period.

Those choosing to keep their weapons, and those buying new ones, must register them with renewals required.  If the registered weapon is given or sold to another, forms have to be completed, the item identified, with the new owner’s name and address.  Then the new owner has 30 days to register them.  Registration fees will support the process.

Gradually a data base will be developed and ones who have a collection of weapons, an arsenal, would be identified and flagged as dealers, subject to another level of scrutiny and regulatory control.

This is complicated stuff and the devil is in the details.

Indeed, some (especially the “bad guys”) will ignore all of this, but they will be subject to prosecution if found with unregistered weapons, or if someone is found with an unregistered weapon purchased or given by them.  It will take time, maybe decades, to work through this group.  It has to start sometime.

And while more regulatory control and knowledge of our lives is abhorrent to me, something has to be started NOW and a more comprehensive solution needs to be sought by our lawmakers.  No more Sandy Hooks, Parklands, Santa Fes.  Now.  Please.

We don’t even hear much anymore about thoughts and prayers regarding the latest incident.  It’s as if we’ve all become inured to them.  That strategy never did work.  We have heard enhanced rhetoric about turning our schools into heavily armed prisons.  Is that really preferable to a “Bureau of Firearms Control?”

Yes, we must always remember those who died to defend our nation on Memorial Day, but think of our teachers and students who now face a war zone in schools.  We need to defend them from NRA’s agenda, cloaked in the sacred shroud of the 2^nd amendment.  None of this takes away one’s right to bear arms, only military style weapons and makes other weapons subject to registration in the same way we regulate motor vehicles. 

And here is a letter from the 4^th grade Grandson of a friend of ours which he wrote to President Trump crying out for humane leadership.  Is there any better message this Memorial Day?

 

Over and Over, Again and Again

The terrible shooting at a school in Parkland, FL makes one stop and wonder how our nation can standby and watch the 2^nd amendment metastasize into a form of a rationalized killing field.  One feels so helpless with a bunch of politicians calling it “evil” and offering prayers to the victims and their families and then do absolutely nothing.  It should be THEIR children in those classrooms.  How would they feel then?    I’ve taken to twitter to express my knee-jerk response, but in this blog I’ve written nearly two dozen articles on the topicof gun control.  How in the world can we sanction military style weaponry as being a “right,” in spite of the 2^nd amendment?  Even better than only banning them, we should require the registration of any weapon as we do automobiles.  Something has to be done now.

So here are my knee-jerk Tweets, good for blowing off steam, but useless to create change.  Below that is one of my most recent blog entries on the topic, written after the mass murdering at a rural Texas church late last year as it pretty much says it all.

 I just could not go about a “normal” day in my life without first expressing my outrage and disgust, at our politicians and our lack of moral leadership.

Banning the sale of automatic weapons such as the AR-15 is part of a long term solution. No one is naive enough to contend it would immediately prevent such tragedies. Do your job Rubio to protect schoolchildren not the NRA. Such a ban does not violate the 2nd amendment https://t.co/emCmbLItXu

— Robert Hagelstein (@lacunaemusing) February 15, 2018

Prayers and thoughts and condolences, our President’s action plan for gun control. https://t.co/SJJLd1ysm9

— Robert Hagelstein (@lacunaemusing) February 14, 2018

T***p took credit for no commercial airline deaths last year. How about the thousands of gun deaths each year?
When do our elected representatives take action? Any action at all? They are all culpable. https://t.co/x0pJOuxo5Q https://t.co/HaQYEiHbi3

— Robert Hagelstein (@lacunaemusing) February 14, 2018

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

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 2nd 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.