Let’s face it, the United States of America is a dangerous country. There isn’t anywhere you can go and be sure you won’t be shot by someone who has lost their connection to their humanity. You could be the intended target or just the victim of a stray bullet like that seven-year old girl in Detroit a few weeks ago.
No one is safe. Nowhere is safe. If that sounds like hyperbole, you haven’t been listening to the news since, say 1966, when Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the bell tower at the University of Texas and murdered 14 innocent people on the streets below. Your home, workplace, grocery store, local restaurant, car, church, synagogue, temple, library, or any other place you can name, can turn deadly. All it takes is a person with intent to kill and easy access to firearms. There appears to be no number of victims, whether they are adults or children, to create a strong enough call to limit access to lethal weapons.
America seems to be numb to the thousands of deaths by guns. We read about homicides in our towns and cities, shake our heads in disbelief, offer up our “thoughts and prayers”, say how terrible it is and then move on to what really concerns Americans, the price of gasoline.
I am reminded of a short story my sophomore English teacher assigned in high school. I believe it was titled, “The Tunnel”. It was about a family returning home from a day at the beach. To get home, they had to drive through a tunnel. The tunnel had large steel doors that would unpredictably close and trap the cars inside. Once inside the people in the cars would be quickly asphyxiated by a lethal gas, their cars removed from sight. This procedure was accepted by the society as a way to manage population. Only a very small number of people in any given year died this way so everyone felt the odds were in their favor to survive a tunnel crossing.
In the story, tensions rose inside the family car as they approached the tunnel. The family went from assuring themselves that they wouldn’t be victims as they had gone through this tunnel many times before to feelings of abject terror as they entered the tunnel. When they emerged safely on the other side, they all let out a shout of joy. The father, then turned to look at his children in the back seat and says, “Who’s up for the beach next week?’ To this everyone in the car shouts, “We are!”
This is how it seems American society has dealt with the endless string of mass shootings in the country. There may be feelings of anxiety or even fear in certain locations or situations but as soon as there is a perception of safety, those fears go away. Tragedy is something that happens to others. Survival is equated with superiority. If something bad didn’t happen to you, you are better than the victims. This thinking limits our feelings of responsibility to others. It reduces us to offering “thoughts and prayers” but never taking the actions needed to reduce the fundamental causes.
I have a nurse friend who works in the emergency department of a major suburban hospital. During the height of the pandemic, she said she would get COVID patients who maintained up to their death that COVID didn’t exist.They couldn’t be dying from it. It was a scam made up by the government or George Soros*. She also had COVID patients who had previously refused vaccination who begged for it as they lay dying. These people could not accept the reality of the pandemic until it was literally killing them. Is this where we are in facing the gun violence? Does a person have to be staring down the barrel of a military assault rifle or lose a child before the seriousness of the epidemic of gun violence moves us to action?
Since the January 6, 2021 assault on our nation’s capital by a mob calling for the death of the Vice President and Speaker of the House, I have wondered what would have been the public’s reaction if multiple members of Congress had been killed by military style assault rifles? Would there have been enough shock and outrage to change our gun laws? Would it really take something like that to move them to action? Let’s hope not. The California Legislature in 1967 passed an emergency bill prohibiting openly carrying firearms after a group of armed Black Panthers** walked into the state capital. Up to this time, openly carrying firearms in California was legal as long as they were not deployed in a threatening manner. The U.S. Congress now has metal detectors that screen for weapons before people can enter the Capital.
But the murder of 13 students at Columbine High School in 1999, 26 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the killing of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 and now, this week the killing of 18 children and three teachers in Uvalde Texas, along with so many more public locations have produced no political action. Perhaps politicians lives are more valuable than the nation’s children?
Unlike California’s prohibition of openly carrying lethal firearms in public, the response from one political party has been to promote the public display of guns without even having a permit. Currently, 26 states allow this. The rational behind this is that if the citizenry is armed, it will prevent violence like a kind of homeopathic remedy of like curing like, lethality preventing death. In reality, it is a sociopathic virus that feeds but does not prevent violence. It is promulgated by vast sums of money from gun manufacturers and right wing entities to politicians, primarily of one political party. It is supported by a blizzard of lies, fear mongering, propaganda and legislative stonewalling of any attempt to change the laws regarding firearm access.
The daily random deaths by guns in America is our version of, “The Tunnel”. We fear its presence in our lives but accept it. We might even, as a country, feel a sense of superiority over other countries that are less “free” and more regulated. Individual freedom in America trumps everything, even our children’s lives.
Meanwhile, let’s meet for lunch. Don’t forget your gun. We want to eat in peace don’t we?
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Thank you for being one of my readers. Your support and encouragement keeps me going. I welcome your feedback.
I didn’t call out a particular political party by name. If you want to research the extent to which one party has gone to promote the proliferation of guns in American society, you will find multiple citations in a Google search.
I am not opposed to prayer. It is something I do every night. It does not stop the murder of innocent people. If it did, the mass shootings in America would have ceased long ago. Praying is a good thing but it isn’t a substitute for action.
*George Soros is a favorite target of right-wing politicians and conspiracy theory mongers. He grew up in Hungary and saw first hand the effects of the German occupation in WWII and later the imposition of Communism by the Soviet Union.
**Black Panthers, also known as the Black Panther Party, was a social and political organization founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seal to challenge police brutality against the African-American community.
Love the ones you are with and the ones you wish you could be with. Life is short and precious. Please tell your Congress people, regardless of political affiliation, this is a time for action.