Let’s Stand Up and Be Heard: Call For Gun Control

Another day, another shooting. Or several shootings. I’ve had enough talk where politicians wring there hands and say nothing can be done about guns. Or let’s look at mental health. It’s time Americans stood up and said, “Enough talk. Let’s see some action. Take their guns away.”

And it is an American phenomenon. Because we are a country of guns. Elisabeth Rosenthal eloquently and factually explained, More Guns = More Killing. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/sunday-review/more-guns-more-killing.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130106&_r=0

Below, I am re-posting an essay I wrote back in 2012. The location of the shooting is different. The victims this time are college-aged rather than elementary age. But three years later and we are still dealing with the same problems, the lack of will by elected politicians to do something that actually will make a difference. That is, take away the military-style weapons from the general populace.

Enough with blaming mental health professionals for not identifying which particular young or middle-aged or old male will be the next mass shooter. Most of these mass killers are male—that is probably the best demographic in identifying the next shooter. Women tend not to kill a whole group of strangers first if they decide to end their lives. We do not have the ability to identify who is going to suddenly decide to take out a bunch of other innocents as he ends his life is a news-worthy fashion. But we do have the ability to prevent every-day folks from acquiring an arsenal.

Mental health professionals, even the best of them, and I’m married to one of them, cannot predict which loner, which disaffected person, which otherwise normal person is going to be that one. This latest shooter, like a lot of the other mass-shooters, while perhaps a little strange, or someone who kept to himself, did not do or say anything that under current laws would have given a clear clue he needed to be committed or kept from having access to the ridiculous, military-style, deadly weapons legally available in so many places.

Let’s stop giving a pass to politicians too cowardly to stand up and do what’s right. “Stuff happens.” That’s what Jeb Bush said of the most recent mass shooting. He used the cleaned-up version of “Shit happens.” Is that what he would have said if he had known one of the victims? I think not.

The demi-god Trump said something like, “It’s too terrible to talk about.” He who talks about everything and is not afraid to go anywhere. Another coward.

Hillary is not a god, or even a demi-goddess. But she has mustered, even before this latest tragedy, the courage to come forward and argue for sensible gun control. Good for her and for anyone else who has the courage to make themselves a target of the NRA and do something to stop the next tragedy before it happens.

That is my litmus test for a politician who will get my vote. They must be willing to take on the NRA. They must be willing to talk about sensible gun control.

These latest shooting victims could have been my children. My grandchildren. My husband. Me or my friends. Or they could have been you or yours. Do you think the families of the latest victims suffer any less than you or I would if it had been our family’s loss? Does each and every one of us have to lose someone before we put an end to the madness?

Join me and shout “Enough”. I will not support any candidate who does not speak out and stand up for sensible gun control.

CALL THE PONY EXPRESS—ANOTHER “INDIAN” MASSACRE

Written December 2012

I promised myself I would write more upbeat, happy essays. After all, life is too short to wallow in sadness. And I did claim this blog was mostly about the amusing things in life with only an occasional dose of seriosity.

But then I turn on the news and see the funerals of little children.

Local news is no better. If they are not covering the national tragedy in Connecticut, they are reporting on local violence and threats to schools in Jefferson and other counties in Kentucky.

Meanwhile, the front page headline of Louisville’s Courier Journal proclaims drastic budget cuts in Kentucky to school safety. A Kentucky state representative is quoted as saying we “need to study” what happened in Connecticut before we think about putting more money into school safety.

We aren’t back in the 1700’s, which incidentally is when the Second Amendment was adopted, and when stagecoaches and the Pony Express carried the news. Don’t we already know what happened?

A young male with easy access to military style weaponry shot his way into a locked school and massacred little children. Back in the 1700’s I suppose we would have called out the Calvary and blamed the Indians for rampaging. Maybe we would have evacuated families with children to a fort.

In the New York Times an architect writes about how we should “harden” our schools like we have done for airplane cockpits to keep the crazies with guns out. Or maybe we should just make schools, movie theaters, churches, mosques, shopping malls and wherever else a crazy person with legally-purchased automatic or semiautomatic weaponry and accouterments might go into fortresses. That would take a lot more money and for more than just school safety.

Retreating to fortresses would not protect us and our children even if we could afford it. The answer is obvious as the noses on our face and the guns in our hands.

 Our love affair with guns and belief in an inalienable right to a gun-toting “frontier” way of life with 21^st century weapons has created the opportunity for this mass carnage of innocents.  And politicians’ blind adherence, until now when some sane voices have emerged, including Louisville’s own brave Representative John Yarmuth, to the NRA’s big stick have the blood of innocent children on their hands.

What century are we in—with 21^st Century guns and an 18^th century mentality?