A Distinction Without A Difference?

My latest newspaper column:

I wonder if the recent horrific murders of police will lead “patriotic” Americans who talk about “Second Amendment remedies” for perceived wrongs, to stop and think for a minute. Of course the answer is no; but when you squint at it in a certain dim light, the killers could be heroes to them. Didn’t they choose “militia” members’ favorite avenue of redress for what they considered government tyranny? Shouldn’t someone ask those Foxotrumpian defenders of truth, justice, and their particular perversion of the American way what, exactly, are the criteria by which they justify their own taking up arms against a duly constituted government body? Assuming they’d be outraged at a suggestion that they’re philosophically in league with cop-killers, might they tell us who, in a country where government and law reflect the will of voters, gets to decide which laws and actions are onerous enough to legitimize revolution, even a one-man one? 

“Patriots” proudly paraded their way to Oregon in support of the insurrection there, cheered by America-lovers across the land. How different, if you strip away skin color and threats to shoot versus actually shooting, were the actions: people abandoning the rule of law to right what they considered wrongs too egregious to be addressed within the constraints of democracy. Can we look at one but not the other without recoiling at the thought of where it all leads, how it all ends?  What sort of line separates which kinds of polluted minds? 

Unable to distinguish a few from the many, people on the right call Black Lives Matter a hate group. A former US Congressman, after the Dallas monstrosity, tweeted that President Obama and BLM better watch out: “We’re coming for you.” Before the slaughter in Nice, some people bragged they’d run down BLM protesters who blocked roads. Who has less hate in their hearts? President Obama spoke in Dallas, about twenty minutes too long, and maybe not the ideal time to tilt, yet again, at the gun control windmill. But he spoke honestly about issues on each side; his praise of the Dallas police couldn’t have been higher, his acknowledgment of the tough and necessary job police do couldn’t have been clearer or more sincere. Yet, even as his words still echoed, right-wing screamers called his speech “a middle finger to police.” Any ray of hope that this time the horror was so great that people might stop shouting and start listening was snuffed out before having a chance even to glimmer through the dark. Preferring to nurture their hatreds rather than accept the demands of citizenship, such people will never look for ways forward. 

If BLM is calling for anarchy (it isn’t), then what is it when presidential candidates and governors call for ignoring laws, court rulings, and parts of the Constitution people don’t like? Red-state secessionists are, by definition, seditious, having neither love nor understanding of the implications of living in a democracy. Who isn’t putting up with laws they don’t like? I am. But I still prefer living where I’m given a voice, even if it doesn’t always prevail. Yes, the recent abominations and Malheur are enormously different. But isn’t there something to be learned, extrapolating from the latter, in considering the former? 

And what about that man who joined that peaceful Dallas protest while legally carrying a rifle? The man falsely identified as a suspect, who, when he found out, notified the police and turned over his weapon, possibly saving his own life, but receiving death threats ever since. The man in reference to whom the Dallas police chief said open-carry makes police work harder? Any second thoughts? Any consideration of deferring to the views of embattled law enforcement professionals, over the curious need for preening and packing? 

When I heard about Dallas, I felt sick. Then I saw moments of transcendence, as people of all ages and races hugged cops, heartfelt and real. It happened here, too, and I believed, momentarily, that it’s finally gone far enough, that this time there’ll be more than passing thoughts and effortless prayers. Then I read the malefic right-wing reactions to President Obama’s speech, and felt sick all over again. I still do.

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Carry On

Here's my latest newspaper column:

In 2015, roughly one person per week was shot by a toddler with a gun, and over a hundred children died in accidental shootings. About thirteen thousand people of all ages died with guns involved, by accident, homicide, or murder/suicide. From 2005 to 2015, seventy-one Americans died from terrorist attacks on US soil, while about 302,000 died from other forms of gun violence. 

Not long ago, a worshiper shot himself in the foot in church. Around here a guy worried about attacks in movie theaters legally carried a pistol to a movie, dropped it, and shot another moviegoer. A Georgia mom killed her 8-year-old daughter when she dropped her gun. Same thing, same age, in Dallas. Dropped guns have gone off in Wal-Mart, Cracker Barrel, Chipotle, an Alabama supermarket, a “Muslim-free” gun shop in Oklahoma. Two patrons killed a gun-shop owner and his son over a $25 handling fee for a failed repair. A lady fired wildly at escaping shoplifters in a crowded Home Depot parking lot. Another good guy busted up a carjacking by shooting the car owner, aiming for the perpetrators. An owner shot his dog accidently, saying he was aiming for his girlfriend. 

A Florida man killed himself while demonstrating the proper way to clean a gun. A Florida woman, who’d posted on Facebook “My right to protect my son with my gun trumps your fear of my gun” was shot in the back by that (four-year-old) son after leaving her pistol loose in her truck. Another Florida man who bought a gun to protect his family shot his four-year-old daughter while cleaning it. A gun in a mom’s purse in a hospital went off and shot her two-year-old daughter in the face. 

People called police about that Colorado random mass-murderer as he was open-carrying down a street, before he open-fired. Police did nothing because he’d broken no laws. And there’s the problem. With everyone packing, how do you know who’s doing so with mayhem in mind? Doesn’t it, in fact, make it easier for a bad guy to walk into a public place and start firing? But, you say, he’d be shot by a patriotically packing patron. Before killing how many? How many such people would be deterred, since many seem intent on dying in their act of violence? And, given the incidents of stupidity above, how likely is the good guy or gal to hit the target instead of someone else? 

Yes, there have been a handful of of good guys with guns stopping bad guys, including a recent (and suspicious) nearby one; far fewer, though, than the other type. And let’s not forget road rage. No, the idea of omnipresent guns in the hands of average citizens doesn’t make me feel safe at all. Meanwhile, training requirements and permits are being legislated away in several states.

In a rare nod to reality, Republicans won’t have guns at their upcoming convention; logically in line with legislators who’re fine with guns in schools, churches, bars, and everywhere else YOU hang out; just not where they do. Could it be because they know, deep in that place in their chests where other people have hearts, that arming all citizens makes us less safe? Does the money they take from the gun lobby speak to them in their dreams, whisper in the voices of the dead that they’ve sold us out? Not likely. 

This exceptionally American mess is predicated on the insanely paranoid idea that citizens need arms to protect themselves from our government; that unless they stockpile AR-15s and enough ammo to fill a silo, Obama’s minions will storm their homes and turn them into gay Muslim Kenyans. That armed with long guns they’ll beat back drones, tanks, and Apache helicopters. That any attempt, no matter how exiguous, to keep guns out of the hands of criminals or, maybe, to require minimal competence, is tantamount to arguing for repeal of the Second Amendment. And so it goes: last weekend bled with mass and individual murders 

I don’t deny that we’re too far gone ever to come back to rationality. All I’m saying is that when an armed patriot heads into a place I’m in, I’m heading out.    

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