“BREAKING: In __________, a tragic situation leaving ______ dead and, with no known motive and few details, still confirms our opinion about ____________.“ (Ron Fournier in the National Journal this morning, the day after San Bernardino.)
Fournier is being sarcastic, of course. Maybe. Or, maybe he’s just trying to make it easier for the media to report on the latest carnage by not upsetting anybody. Just fill in the blanks. Maybe sarcasm best describes the callousness of a nation refusing to act.
Well, I’m damned upset! If I hear one more political son-of-a-bitch spout the words “thoughts and prayers†after mass murder in this nation, I’m prepared get the 12- gauge out of the closet. Talk, talk, talk while innocent Americans die, die, die!
The President has warned us of the dangers of starting to take such events as commonplace because there have been so many of them. And, because there has been absolutely no commitment on the part of our society to take a single step to stop this maniacal savagery. None!
It would be easy - and wrong - to lay all blame for this national cowardice at the feet of a Congress terrified to act because of an outsized concern for personal future employment at the public trough. A lot of it correctly goes there. Just not all of it. What’s happening in your city hall, the courthouse, your statehouse? Anyone in your neighborhood who can write legislation or an ordinance or put new laws on the books in any form working feverishly to get it done? Didn’t think so.
Oh, we give it lots of lip service. We tell each other how sick and awful this unchallenged attack is. We grieve and wring our collective hands about another shooting “somewhere else.†We do it each time it happens. But what’s being done to stop it?
We’ve become cleverly artistic designing barricades out front of many buildings. We’ve gotten better disguising video cameras so they’re not intruding so we can continue with our false sense of both security and privacy. We’ve come to expect armed guards, body scanners, barefoot strolls around airports and looking at ourselves on monitors in banks, government buildings and even some theaters. We’re coping really well while armed murderers learn to work their way around our latest “barricades.†(More sarcasm there.)
As a society, we keep coming up with all sorts of mental nostrums to deal with the aftermath of these multiple, unprovoked killings. But we’ve not done a damned thing to remove the underlying cancer eating the guts of our collective security. Getting guns and other weapons of destruction out of the hands of the sick and deranged. Or anyone else who violently attacks our society. Not one damned thing. We’re treating symptoms and cleaning up after each new slaughter but ignoring the obvious steps demanded to end the killing.
Outside of more cops in our schools and insane talk of arming teachers, what’s been done since Newtown to protect our kids and grandkids? Has putting armed guards inside and outside Planned Parenthood clinics ended the murders of innocents? Is there a single college campus safer now than 10 years ago because enlightened leaders have done enlightened things? With thousands of cameras and mental detectors hidden in stores, are we less likely to see someone blasting away as shoppers dive for cover? Have we ended sniper attacks on our highways? How about theaters? Churches?
The only possible answers to all those queries is a shouted national “NO!†We’ve done nothing. And, if we keep treating the NRA as some sort of above-reproach protector of the bastardized Second Amendment, we’ll continue doing nothing. Despite the continuing slaughter of unsuspecting innocents who happen to be in the “wrong place†at the “wrong time.â€
As a society, we’re bombarded by the NRA and gun fanatics - who may or may not be members - that “Obama is after your guns.†Membership campaigns are based on this B.S.. And, despite absolutely no proof, they succeed. And we let ‘em!
Speaking of that Second Amendment garbage about gun ownership being guaranteed because of the Constitution, retired SCOTUS Justice John Paul Stevens has an answer for that. Insert five words - just five - in that paragraph. His wording would read “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms - WHEN SERVING IN THE MILITIA - shall not be infringed.†Seems to me that would put some common sense back into the original words written by the authors a couple of hundred years ago.
Republican presidential candidates are a national embarrassment (again) as they pander for votes after another mass murder. Carly Fiorina said “liberals are wrong†to blame those phony abortion videos for what happened in Colorado Springs. She says that after (a) the makers of the trash admitted the falsity of their work and (b) the shooter told police there would be “no more baby parts†harvested there. With any luck at all, the wicked witch of H-P will melt away when cold water is poured on her latest fraudulent presidential ambitions .
We’re facing many serious national problems. But, before we can begin solving them, we MUST first secure the safety of citizens insofar as government can do that. It may mean replacing a significant number of politicians with folks who have the determination and guts to end this weaponry nightmare - to put the NRA Hydra back in its box - to shout “NO†to interests trying to keep unfettered access to guns the “law of the land.â€
The Second Amendment also talks of the necessity of “the security of a free state.†We’re long overdue in quoting those words long and loud! What the Hell is it going to take? And when the Hell is it going to start?