One More Stab at Having a Gun Conversation

I've been doing a lot of reading on guns lately. I have several friends who are anti-gun; I also have friends, and most importantly, a nephew in the Navy, who are on the opposite end of the spectrum.  I have teacher friends who don't want guns in schools, and parent friends who do want a gun available if needed. I have friends who hunt and friends who don't. I have friends who own guns and (I think) more friends who don't.  Both side are posting fast and furiously, pardon the expression, in attempts to sway opinion on guns in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting.

I don't think I've ever seen my nephew more passionate about a subject. Because I love him dearly, and because I respect his opinion, I'm trying to understand where he's coming from. I'm not sure we'll ever agree on guns - but I'm not sure we have to. I do want us to be able to peacefully co-exist, which is what I think most people want. I'm still crazy enough to think there's common ground out there on most of the big ugly issues,  including guns, if we can get past all of the rhetoric and actually listen to each other.

So I've been trying to listen, and trying to see the pro-gun side of things. I hope he's trying to understand where I come from too. Here's where I landed on some of the more popular topics I've seen lately.

There should be no limits on guns, period. What I think I understand is that there shouldn't be any limits on the type of weapons, the number that can be owned or purchased, the number of rounds of ammunition that can be fired or purchased, or how the guns are equipped (barrel shrouds, flash suppressors, silencers, and so on). Limiting the guns that a law-abiding citizen can own only makes it more likely that a criminal will end up being the only one who has guns.  And if we limit or take away one type of gun, it's just a matter of time before Uncle Sam will take away all the guns, leaving the population defenseless in the face of a tyrannical government or a person with bad intentions.

How do I respond to that? The other day, I posted a video of Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn performing his classic, If I had a Rocket Launcher , with this statement:

Sure, I believe in the right to keep and bear arms. But there are limits, right?

I didn't get a whole lot of action on that one, I think because people really like the song and so would 'like' the post for that reason but missed my point: As a private citizen it would be absurd for me to own a rocket launcher, or an IED, or a cannon, or a nuclear missile, or an assault weapon or any number of other clearly 'not intended for personal use' weapons to create a kill zone around my house to protect me and my loved ones. Yes, 'kill zone' is a term I've seen in several articles and blog posts lately, and I have to say it makes me uncomfortable.

Now, I don't think anyone believes I should have a rocket launcher and I haven't seen anyone advocating for this type of weapon being in private hands. But when you go the 'no limits' route, that means no limits, right? And if  I can have one of these, then the bad guy down the road can have one, and before you know it we'll be having nuclear shootouts at the corner market. And while it's extreme to think that would ever happen, that's apparently what's happened with other weapons, such as the kind used at Sandy Hook and similar shootings. Because we allow good guys to have them, bad guys have them too.

My gut response to this is simple: I think there are reasonable limits that we can all be comfortable with, and still allow people to own guns for sport, hunting, and yes, for protection.

You don't even know the definition of an assault weapon. That is an absolutely correct statement. Most people don't know the clinical definition. I've seen more than one lately, similar but with varying degrees of specificity, so I'm not sure the experts even know what the definition is. To me, it's kind of like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's comment on pornography:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it...

Have I ever seen one, up close and personal?  Nope. Have I seen what I think qualifies as one in movies and on the news?  Yep.  Have I seen reports of shootings that used a 'so-called' assault weapon? Yep.  And yet, I don't recall ever feeling compelled to pull out a gun pictorial to make sure people called it by the correct term. The right name in most of these cases is 'the gun that an evil sick bastard just used to kill a bunch of innocent people.' Isn't that sufficient? 

Do we really want to argue over the semantics of it?

Finally, on this subject, there's this interesting fact, from an article I found in my research:

These guns are not the weapon of choice for this nation’s criminals or killers. Indeed, the FBI found that in 2010, the last year for which data is available, more people were beaten to death than killed with all long guns including these so-called assault weapons.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it would take more than 10 minutes or so -- the amount of time it took at Sandy Hook -- to beat 20 children and six adults to death.

We had an assault weapons ban for 10 years and it didn't go any good.  That's also a correct statement, because the ban was doomed to fail from the start. As with pretty much all legislation ever dreamed up by either side, we get ourselves so strangled up in nonsense that we end up with a law so watered down or so ridiculous that it's pretty much worthless.

Take the ban that everyone on the pro-gun side says didn't work, and everyone on the more gun control side says needs to be resurrected. From an article  in the Washington Post on the history of gun control regulations:

The law defined “assault weapon” narrowly, outlawing the sale of 19 brands of semiautomatic firearms, including certain guns built on the AR-15 design, which is the civilian version of the military’s M-16. To be banned, a gun had to have two or more military-style features, such as a pistol grip, a flash suppressor or a bayonet mount. Manufacturers found workarounds, modifying their designs to comply with the law.  “There were so many ways around the ban that it wasn’t really effective,” said John W. Magaw, who ran the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) during that time.

Almost before the ink was dry, gun manufacturers were working to skirt the language, removing a feature or two so that the gun no longer met the rules.  Now - before you go ballistic on me, that's what's supposed to happen in our political system. Isn't that why businesses, trade associations, unions, and the like spend so much money lobbying?

Do I wish the gun manufacturers didn't work so hard to get around the intent of the law, which was to protect people from being killed by a maniac wielding one of these guns? Yes, of course. But I do not fault them for making a legal product and selling it to people legally.

Limiting the number of shots that can be fired without reloading would make the world more dangerous, not safer. This one comes down to one question -- "Who is holding the gun?"

If it's a bad guy, then you want him to have to take the time to reload, because it means he can't kill as many people. If it's the good guy, you don't want him to have to reload, because that takes away from his opportunity to take out the bad guy.  Plus, "good guys miss sometimes" as I read, and so more bullets without reloading is a good thing. 

Now, if  no one was holding the weapon that can shoot a whole bunch of times without having to be reloaded, we wouldn't have to worry about reloading, would we?

Well, if you ban the manufacturing of these guns, people will just make their own. I thought this was ridiculous; to find out, I did a search for "how to make a plastic assault rifle" and found 31,900,000 results. Many of them are news stories and such, but a significant number of them are little instruction manuals, many with videos.  So sure, it's possible that people would make their own. 

It's harder to find out how many times one of these home-made so-called assault weapons was used in a crime, or more particularly in a mass shooting.  I couldn't readily find a statistic, using a variety of search terms.

My guess is, if you put a bunch of bad guys in a room with some PVC pipe and whatnot, they'd end up hitting each other over the head with it long before the made a weapon out of it.

The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. There's some truth to this, I agree.  Once the bad guy has the gun, and has the intent to use it, there isn't really much that can happen to keep him (or her) from doing what they set out to, except someone else who can take them out.  Which is why we arm the police.  On the other hand, since the police can't be everywhere at once, we need to have other armed people at schools. Or so we're told.

My question: Is it just at schools, or is it everywhere?  Is it also movie theaters, and shopping malls, and WalMarts, and bars, and grocery stores, and churches, and bus terminals, and fast food restaurants, and everywhere groups of people gather? Because if you follow the logic from the pro-gun side, people choose schools and, apparently, only those particular movie theaters in a multiplex that say 'No Guns Allowed', because they know they won't meet any resistance.

Personally, I think the people who do this kind of thing choose the places they do for maximum exposure, not for minimum resistance. I don't think they spend a lot of time scouting the signage. Shooting one person at a Walmart, while a much more frequent occurrence than a mass shooting is simply much less impactful than shooting up a school or a midnight movie. And that's why we don't hear about it.

But it's the media's fault. It's true that the media spends an inordinate amount of time on tragedies of all kinds - we even get special music for the stories, so if you're not already glued to the TV, you can come running when you hear the somber tones.

Here's a perfect example: One of my local media outlets here in Syracuse sent the lead anchor to Newtown.  I have no idea why -- we already had wall to wall coverage by all of the networks. But I had to chuckle when, the same night I saw my guy standing in front of a soccer field on the 6PM news, I saw a local anchor from a Chicago affiliate of a different network standing in front of the same soccer field on their 10PM news.  It's ridiculous.

And I also agree with the folks who posted on Facebook and Twitter that we need to commit to memory the names of the victims and never again mention the name of the shooter.  That's a lofty goal, and admirable, but we know that's not going to happen. How many of the Sandy Hook victims can you name?

It's not just the media, it's the video games and movies. If you're my age or a little older, I'm sure you remember how aggravated parents were with all wildly gyrating rock and roll stars on television that were going to drive all us impressionable girls to do....whatever.  And you surely remember that marijuana would lead to harder drugs. And that reading Playboy or Hustler would cause boys to become rapists or something (even though they got the magazines from their dads).

We laughed at all of that back then, so why isn't everyone laughing now when the NRA blames Quentin Tarantino movies and violent video games?   We've always had violence in the movies, so why now start blaming the entertainment industry? Is it because the violence is more gratuitous? More realistic? Done using the same type of gun that's being used in mass killings?

Seems it was not so long ago that when people suggested that violent cartoons, movies and video games were bad, pro-gun folks would talk about Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner and snidely ask if we should ban safes and anvils. And of course cars, and pens, and broken beer bottles, and pool cues and baseball bats and on and on down the line of absurdity.

Whatever the reasons the NRA chose to raise this issue now, to suggest that the problem is an abuse of the First Amendment, not the Second, seems a little disingenuous. The question is though, what specifically should be done?  What rights do they feel everyone else needs to give up to make our movies and video games less 'pornographic' as Wayne LaPierre said, and safer for our children and society?

People with mental health issues shouldn't be able to own guns. Agree again. Except where do you draw the line?  Anxiety? Depression? OCD? ADHD? Medicated, or not medicated? Seeing a therapist, or not? Would the slightest hint of a behavioral issue, current or prior, preclude someone from owning a gun? If yes, I can think of several gun owners I know who would be disqualified.

Would current gun owners be willing to undergo a mental exam of some sort every year, at their own expense, to certify they're mentally fit for gun ownership?

And don't forget, the Newtown killer's mother was a legal gun owner; she also happened to have a son with 'issues'. So, would all current gun owners be willing to have their family mental health history documented, and tested and affirmed regularly (again, at their own expense), and sacrifice their right to own guns if they had a child or spouse with a current or prior mental health issue? 

We need more people with concealed carry permits, and we need each state to honor all other state's concealed carry permits.  This is a tough one, I admit. Picture a person leaving their home in Virginia and heading to New York to visit family. You've got Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York concealed carry laws to worry about, and I don't think we post the rules on the Welcome signs, can't remember. You either take your chances or you have to learn the laws and do whatever's necessary to be compliant with them along the way. Seems silly, I agree. 

So there are two options: a national concealed carry law, which means that everyone who wanted a permit for CCW would have to meet the same requirements and would be equally vetted and deemed a responsible citizen who is not a threat. The other option is, we trust that if your state says you're OK, my state should assume you're OK, even though each state's 'gun sensibility' may be very different. 

Would pro-gun folks agree to a national law on this, even if more restrictive than their current state law? If yes, then I see that as progress. If no, then I see it as more of the same that we've been hearing forever, that the whole solution lies somewhere else.

People are demonizing legitimate gun owners. The people who are being demonized are not the people who hunt or shoot at targets, like my friends and my nephew.  I think people are demonizing the kind of weapons that allow 20 little children to be murdered in about 10 minutes, and I think people are demonizing the bastards that use these weapons to commit that kind of heinous, senseless, atrocious act. And I think there's a certain amount of demonizing aimed at Wayne LaPierre, the executive director of the NRA.

So where do we go from here? Pro-gun people simply saying 'don't touch my guns', 'guns don't kill people, people kill people', or, now, 'guns don't kill people, video games kill people' doesn't help the conversation any more than anti-gun people saying all guns are bad.  I am NOT one of those people. I respect your right to have guns.

But so far, it seems like everything that's been suggested has been about stopping him and others like him only after they have committed to killing as many people as they can before taking their own lives, or being killed in the process.

To me, that's too late.

The NRA and others have put several ideas on the table, pointed at several contributing factors leading to mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook, or Aurora, or Virginia Tech, or Fort Hood, or Columbine, and so on. So now, let's talk about those ideas -- a conversation, not a shouting match.  A conversation geared towards solving the problem, not simply perpetuating the status quo.

Yes, We Can Do Something (Part 1)

As I mentioned in the Introduction, some friends and I have had running conversations about mass shootings and gun safety legislation since the Sandy Hook tragedy. Honestly, that's way too long for us to be working on this.

Before we dive into our recommendations, there's some ground to cover, including these overarching principles:

We need to change how we talk about the goal. It is not to prevent mass shootings from happening; the goal is to make it harder for someone to commit mass carnage, and to reduce the number of deaths should such an event occur. 

And, gun safety legislation must stand alone, with no unrelated amendments or attachments. Any attempts to attach anything that is not directly related to gun safety shall be considered a bribe.. 

That second one may seem extreme, but one of the problems we have is that literally anything can be attached to a bill, no matter how far removed from the topic at hand. The only way to make sure that doesn't happen is to be absurdly strict.  

For these discussions, the term 'guns' excludes air guns, nail guns, starter pistols, bubble guns, staple guns, Nerf guns, water pistols, etc., and includes handguns, rifles, sidearms, firearms, so-called 'assault weapons,' semi-automatic weapons, 'military-style' weapons', 'weapons of war' and other terms of disgust or endearment. We all know what we're talking about here, and pretending otherwise is merely a deflection. 

What else? These changes would impact all gun sales, not just sales of the type of weapon used in mass shootings, and would standardize processes at the federal level.  States could opt to add additional regs if desired.  I'm aware some progress may have been made in some areas in the years since we first started these conversations. And finally, we tried to take an 'all of the above' approach, to this, addressing key themes from both sides of the argument, in the interest of allowing everyone a victory or two. 

So: here are some recommendations related to legal purchases of guns:

• Raise the legal age for purchasing guns. If it's not safe for kids to purchase alcohol until they are 21, they should not be allowed to purchase a gun until they're 21. If that means the age for voting and being drafted, should the need arise, must be raised to 21, so be it. 

• Require registration of all guns on a federal gun license, regardless of the gun type, and regardless of how bought, sold, or otherwise transferred to a different owner. Everyone who owns a gun must have a license to do so. 

• Mandatory education and training must be provided before every gun purchase or transfer is completed. The training must be specific to the gun, and include all aspects of gun ownership (carrying, transporting, using, and storing the gun and ammunition, etc.). The training must also include reports of gun owners hurting themselves or others, such as when kids and parents accidentally kill children, and accidental shootings in the leg, in the head, in the head, in the testicles, in the testicles, in the testicles, in the penis, in the foot, taking a selfie, defending a Muslim-free gun store, trying out his new holster, in the girlfriend, in the girlfriend, in the girlfriend, etc. It must also include video impact statements from survivors and from families of victims of mass shootings. Proof of successful completion of the training must be documented as part of the sale or transfer transaction. 

• Require mandatory videotaping of all gun sales and require a 'green light' result on a background check, rather than just the absence of a 'red light.' These ideas are good ones, and came from Walmart, after the mass shooting at their El Paso store left 23 people dead. 

• Require yearly renewal of the federal gun license, to include proficiency testing for all guns on the license. Testing should also include an assessment of a person's decision-making ability, such as when to fire vs. when to de-escalate. This training is critical to support the 'good guy with a gun' argument.

• Enhance the federal background check process, to include a check of criminal records, mental health records, and social media posts to identify potentially risky gun owners, and to give them a chance to respond to the findings. The background check must be applied to all gun sales and transfers.

• Implement mandatory reporting into the federal background check system. (a) All law enforcement organizations and security companies must provide timely reporting on all incidents involving all types of guns. (b) All branches of the United States Military must provide timely reporting of relevant data, including all discharge statuses. (c) All social media companies, 'discussion boards,' gaming platforms, etc. must proactively monitor for and report threats of violence, or actual violence, to a designated agency. (d) Requirements will be developed to ensure sufficient but only minimally necessary data is reported. (e) Additionally, all medical facilities and practitioners must provide timely reporting of anonymized data on gunshot victims to the CDC to allow for research, policy development, educational, and legislative purposes. (f) Failure to comply with the reporting requirements will result in an escalated financial and/or criminal penalty process.

• Eliminate state background check systems upon implementation of the enhanced federal system. Historical data from the separate state systems must be incorporated into the federal system before they are shut down.

• Implement a minimum 10-day waiting period on all gun purchases and transfers. One year after implementation of the new background check system, an assessment of the average time to complete a background check will be reviewed, and adjustments to the 10-day waiting period may be considered at that time.

• Attach a federal excise tax to the purchases of guns as we do cigarettes, fuel, airline tickets and alcohol. Taxes collected will be placed in a dedicated fund, used solely in support of gun safety efforts. The fund will be audited annually to ensure the tax is being collected, allocated, and distributed as intended. 

These recommendations pertain to ammunition sales and purchases.

• Require mandatory reporting on large ammunition sales, like the reporting in place today for deposits under federal banking regulations. The definition of 'large' sales will be data-based, and determined by federal regulators. 

• Attach a federal excise tax to ammunition, as outlined above.

• Limit the sale of high-capacity magazines. The definition of 'high-capacity' will be data-based, and determined by federal regulators. 

Coming up, I'll look at things we can do to ensure bad guys with guns are dealt with appropriately; red flag laws; mental health, and more.

We Don't Need to Take People's Guns Away

If you saw last week's debate, or yesterday's interview with Beto O'Rourke on Meet the Press, you know that he's on record with a mandatory buyback of AR-15s and AK-47s and other 'weapons of war.'

Don't get me wrong -- I think these guns are unnecessary, and have no purpose other than inflicting a great deal of harm in a very short period of time. But the mandatory buyback - confiscation with pay, if you will - is wrong. And I don't think most Democrats, or most Americans, believe it's right, or constitutional, even though O'Rourke says it can be done using the Commerce Clause without stepping on the Second Amendment.

This is exactly the kind of position that will make it much harder to get Donald Trump out of office next year. Besides, there are too many other things the majority of us do agree on, such as background checks for all gun sales; red flag laws, given courts the ability to have someone's guns temporarily removed; allowing medical professionals to collect and study data on gunshot victims; and so on. That's where the current Congress should be focused, regardless of what O'Rourke and the other candidates think.
Back in 2013, a friend and I had a very long conversation about guns, which culminated in my post The One in which We Agree.... The post outlined what we, after days of discussion and negotiation via email and chat, were comfortable with to try and shift the dial on gun safety and enhance the principles of responsible gun ownership. Here's what we agreed was reasonable, not overly burdensome on current and prospective gun owners, and which might be achievable (if only...):

1. People choosing to exercise their right to bear arms need criminal and mental health clearance. Yes, this is background checks, and yes, it's intrusive to a certain degree, but it doesn't feel unreasonable to me. 
2. Registration of all gun purchases on a federal gun license. I'm okay with a federal license; I appreciate states having different tolerances for gun legislation and ownership, but certainly in the case of concealed carry permits, we need one law, not many.
3. Mandatory safety training for each type of firearm purchased. This is so simplistic it's ridiculous, and I'm not sure whether it's already the law of the land, but if not it certainly should be.
4. Yearly renewal of the federal gun license, including proficiency testing. Again, not rocket science. He suggested not only proficiency, but also moral simulation, to gauge a person's decision-making ability, such as when to fire vs. when to de-escalate, which I think is a fascinating approach. 
5. Reducing the price of ammunition, thereby making it more readily available so people can practice with their weapons. I had a hard time with this one, but coupled with all of the other things we'd change, and a couple of qualifiers, I decided I could live with it. My qualifiers? Eliminating Internet ammunition purchasing and adding mandatory reporting of large volume ammo purchases, similar to how banks are required to report large cash deposits.
6. We agreed we need to eliminate black market gun sales, but neither of us offered anything here. I'm not sure how to do it, other than good old fashioned police work, finding out who's selling guns illegally and stopping them. It'll take quite a bit of effort, but coupled with other changes, it may be possible to make a dent.

Yes - these would impact law-abiding gun owners more than they impact criminals. But here's the thing: when it comes to mass shootings, most of the perpetrators were law-abiding citizens right up until the point they started killing innocent people. With the right rules in place, it's certainly possible that we might have been able to prevent one or more mass shooting. 

Sunday School 5/20/18

Not surprisingly, they were talking guns in the classrooms this morning. Oh sure, there was other stuff too, but for the most part everyone but Meet The Press focused on this issue, in the aftermath of the shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas. Here's how the conversations went. 

On CNN's State of the Union, Jake Tapper had a conversation with Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who mentioned that while all of Texas was hurting, they were going to be OK. He spoke of laws addressing culpability in a crime if a person's gun was used in a crime, even if not used by the owner.

But, without question, Jake, several things need to happen. One, we have to start at home. Gun ownership -- and I'm a proud gun owner - that comes with responsibility of gun control in your home. Be sure that your kids and grandkids or anyone who might have access to your home cannot get your guns.

Tapper wondered if that should be the law that a person has to lock up their guns. It seemed a simple question: should it be the law in Texas that guns had to be locked up?

In Texas, again, we hold you very responsible if you are a gun owner. For example, I'm a concealed carry, as are almost one million Texans. If I use my gun to stop a crime or to defend myself, and a stray bullet - if I fire a bullet that goes astray and strikes someone else, I can be held not only civilly, but criminally liable...

He explained that law in more detail, leading Tapper to ask again about a law requiring safe storage in Texas.

Jake, Jake, I didn't come on with you to go through the entire penal code of the federal government or the state.

Wouldn't you have thought that the Lt. Governor would know what the current laws were in his own state?  He talked about armed teachers; he did know that in the state of Texas, teachers can be armed. I got the sense he thought we needed more of them to take on this added responsibility.

Another solution? Fewer doors - keep the fire exits, but only one or two entry doors.

So, I am proposing that our new school designs are built that way, and we retrofit our schools. The average age of schools in Texas -- in America, Jake, are 44 years old. Schools weren't designed and built 40, 50 years ago to deal with today's issues.

Patrick also was a guest on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. This time, he brought in another cause of the problem.

George, should we be surprised in this nation? We have devalued life, whether it's through abortion, whether it's the breakup of families, through violent movies and particularly violent video games which now outsell movies and music. Psychologists and psychiatrists will tell you that students are desensitized to violence, may have lost empathy for their victims by watching hours and hours of violent video games. 97% of teenagers, according to psychiatrists and psychologists watch video games, 85% of those are violent games...Are we desensitized, are these children, are these teenagers?

Stephanopoulos noticed Patrick had not mentioned guns as being part of the issue, and pointed out that some believe too many guns, not too many doors on schools, is a problem.

...It's not any one issue. But we, again, we have to look at our culture of violence, just our violent society, our Facebook, our Twitter, the bullying of adults on adults and children on children. We have to look at ourselves, George - it's not about the guns, it's about us.

He showed more familiarity with Texas gun laws this time, noting that it's against the law to let a loaded gun get into the hands of a child, but focused again on the part about allowing teachers to carry. Stephanopoulos offered up a question.

GS: ...we also have violent video games in other developed countries. We have Twitter and Facebook in other developed countries, so how do you explain another stunning statistic? Americans of high school age are 82 times more likely to die of gun homicide than their peers in the rest of the developed world. That has to be connected to the availability of guns, doesn't it?

DP: No, it doesn't have to be, George, and I can't compare one country with another country because there are many variables in all these countries. Here's what I know: we live in a violent country where we've devalued life. 

Echoing his visit on CNN, Patrick talked about gun control starting at home, needing the best background checks, about being sensible.

But remember, we cannot sit back and say it's the gun. It's us as a nation, George. On this Sunday morning when we all go to church and pray or go to the synagogue or the mosque or wherever we go, let's look inward at our self as a nation.

On it went, the well regulated militia including teachers, the good guy with a gun thing, taking guns out of society will not make us safer, it will make it easier for the evil people... and then, after talking about funerals he and the governor had attended, there was resolve.

And no one, George, no one with a gun is going to walk into a school or anywhere else and bring our state to our knees. 

For counterpoint, Stephanopoulos had Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Nicole Hockley, founder of Sandy Hook Promise, follow the Lt. Governor. They had some good discussion, including an 'all of the above' solution. But before that, George asked Guttenberg for his comments on the interview with Lt. Governor Patrick.

I think those are the most idiotic comments I've ever heard regarding gun safety. Let me be clear, he should be removed from office for his failure to want to protect the citizens of Texas.

He also pointed out that, at the NRA convention (where he protested), the hot new item was a foldable gun that looks like a cell phone. And how that was very far removed from what the framers must have contemplated. I'm sure Guttenberg's right on that point. 

Face the Nation, on CBS, invited Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, who echoed the comments about criminal liability for gun owners who don't keep adequate control over their weapons, at the same time as he lamented 'inaction' on the part of elected officials.

And I think the American people, gun owners, the vast majority of which are pragmatic and actually support gun sense and gun reform in terms of keeping guns in the right hands - we need to start using the ballot box and ballot initiatives to take the matters out of the hands of people that are doing nothing, that are elected, into the hands of the people, to see that the will of the people in this country is actually carried out.

I think that's a good place to end things today; I know it's a lot to chew on.

If you're interested, you can check out the unimpressive visit by new NRA president Ollie North on Fox News Sunday; Mark Kelly also dropped by.

See you around campus.

Will We Even Have the Chance?

Famous people from all corners of the political spectrum will be talking on the Sunday news shows today about Sandy Hook Elementary and what happened there, and they'll almost certainly bat around all of the options we have to deal with this 'situation', I guess you call it, of guns being used by the wrong people to do really bad things.

Among them, I'm sure, will be these, all of which have been batted around in various ways on social media since the horrific events unfolded on Friday morning:

• tighter gun control, of varying degrees, including doing something about multi-round clips;
• greater availability of mental health services, so that people who could do this would be identified and get the help they need;
• more guns (not fewer), because people could stop this kind of thing if only they were armed;
• tighter security at schools, so people who would do harm can't get in;
• more God in schools and in society in general.

Let me say that I've never fired a gun of any kind, and don't really have the desire to.  I have friends who hunt, who own guns, who are completely responsible with them. An old flame of mine took me to Las Vegas once to go to a Jimmy Buffett concert, but I think the real reason was because there's a place there where you can pay to shoot a machine gun, which he and his buddy did and loved even more than the concert. Go figure.

I believe that reliable people should be able to own guns, but I do not want them sitting in my living room, nor do I want them in the grocery store or church or at a basketball game 'packing iron', or whatever you call it, because it makes me feel less safe, not more safe. I have to trust that in their own homes, they store their guns in such a way that when I'm there, I'm not at risk from say, their children putting two and two together, if you know what I mean.

I'm not a fan of being able to shoot lots of bullets really fast, the way you can with a camera that has continuous shooting mode. Just as I don't want that many pictures of me floating around, I don't want that many bullets floating around. If I had continuous shooting mode on my camera, I'm sure I'd get lucky with at least some of the shots. But if you have to take the time to compose your picture, adjust your focus, think about the picture before you take it (which I do), to me it makes sense to have to do that with a gun. 

Like I said, I don't know the answer. I only know it's not going to be easy having this discussion, in part because of what we Americans believe about things. When you compare our thoughts and actions on guns with thoughts and actions on other things, do we even make sense?

• We want to have each state's concealed carry gun law honored in every other state. But we don't want to allow a marriage performed in one state to be honored in every other state?
• We are pretty sure the issue isn't guns, it's a mental health problem. But we don't support tax dollars being used for health insurance programs (mental health or otherwise)?
• We don't want the government's hands all over our guns with burdensome regulations, but we don't have a problem with government hands all over a woman's uterus?

I don't get it.

And one more thing: We want our legislators to be accountable to us, to work for us, to do what we want, but we cede that accountability to businesses and interest groups and unions to basically write the legislation for the people that work for us. And yes, this means the NRA but it also certainly means big agriculture and big business and big banks and big pharma and big oil and big unions and big media conglomerates and big everything else.

Assuming we can ever figure out what we want, will we even have the chance to get it?

The One in which We Agree...

As I mentioned the other day, a friend and I have carried on a lengthy conversation on gun control, some of which was admittedly emotional and reckless, some of which was argumentative and challenging. 

To be sure, we did not agree on everything -- there were many sticking points, among them whether or not we even need to do anything.  In the post which sparked our conversation, I tried to get my head around some of the key points raised by folks who do not support additional gun control legislation, including what Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's spokesman, put on the table after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. 

I admitted that I'm not a gun lover, but also affirmed my belief that gun ownership is a right, albeit one that I believe can be reasonably 'controlled', just as our right to free speech is 'controlled' by legislation designed to protect me and others from irresponsible speech.

Here are a few of the areas where we struggled, at least initially:

• whether there's a need to respond to 'outliers' such as Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, VA Tech, Columbine and the like, given that they account for such a small percentage of gun crimes and deaths.
• what to call the weapon of choice in these mass shootings. I conceded the term 'assault weapon' was misunderstood, poorly defined in legislation, and inflammatory. I declared my preference for the term 'the gun that an evil sick bastard just used to kill a bunch of innocent people' which admittedly is more inflammatory but also more to the point and not as open to confusion.
• whether it was logical to include things such as death by high school sports injury, death by drowning, death by poisoning, etc. as more dangerous than guns because more people are killed by them each year. I thought this was silly; he thought it pointed out the need for a discussion on where we apply our limited resources.
• whether any legislation would have an impact on criminals, who ultimately are the ones who use guns for the wrong purpose. 
• whether it would be reasonable to put any restrictions on the news media, relative to how they report on crimes of this nature.  
• whether or not we could collectively rise to the challenge, assuming that agreement could be reached that something needed to be done.

In the end, we ended up agreeing, in large part, on a number of things that seem reasonable, not overly burdensome on current and prospective gun owners, and which might be achievable:

1. People choosing to exercise their right to bear arms need criminal and mental health clearance. Yes, this is background checks, and yes, it's intrusive to a certain degree, but it doesn't feel unreasonable to me. 
2. Registration of all gun purchases on a federal gun license. I'm okay with a federal license; I appreciate states having different tolerances for gun legislation and ownership, but certainly in the case of concealed carry permits, we need one law, not many.
3. Mandatory safety training for each type of firearm purchased. This is so simplistic it's ridiculous, and I'm not sure whether it's already the law of the land, but if not it certainly should be.
4. Yearly renewal of the federal gun license, including proficiency testing.  Again, not rocket science. He suggested not only proficiency, but also moral simulation, to gauge a person's decision-making ability, such as when to fire vs. when to de-escalate, which I think is a fascinating approach. 
5. Reducing the price of ammunition, thereby making it more readily available so people can practice with their weapons. I had a hard time with this one, but coupled with all of the other things we'd change, and a couple of qualifiers, I decided I could live with it. My qualifiers? Eliminating Internet ammunition purchasing and adding mandatory reporting of large volume ammo purchases, similar to how banks are required to report large cash deposits.
6. We agreed we need to eliminate black market gun sales, but neither of us offered anything here. I'm not sure how to do it, other than good old fashioned police work, finding out who's selling guns illegally and stopping them. It'll take quite a bit of effort, but coupled with other changes, it may be possible to make a dent.

I'll add a few other things to the list:

1. Require states to submit all necessary information into the background check system, so that it's truly viable and prevents criminals from getting guns.
2. Enforce gun laws already on the books, including prosecuting people who attempt to buy guns when they know they legally can't, and prosecuting people who have other people purchase their guns for them, regardless of the reason.
3. If a gun - handgun, rifle, 'gun that an evil sick bastard just used to kill a bunch of innocent people' or anything in between - is used during the commission of a crime, there needs to be a minimum mandatory sentence for using the gun.  And, that sentence gets served first, before the consecutive (not concurrent) sentence for the other crime. We need to make the criminal use of a gun very unattractive.
4. Gun legislation cannot have anything unrelated added to it. Politicians cannot attach a jobs bill or welfare benefit or unemployment changes or tax cuts or anything else to gun legislation. Period. If they try to do it, charge them with bribery.
5. People with family members with mental health problems should not be allowed to legally posses guns. If you buy into the theory that the reason Adam Lanza did what he did was because he had mental health issues, and his mother knew about them, you should be furious that she not only kept guns in the house, but taught him how to use them.

Reasonable? Unreasonable? Let me know what you think.

Random Thoughts: The Time is Now

Random thoughts, sitting on the porch listening to a gentle rain falling, watching the dust wash away from the garden, smiling at reflections in the puddles on the street (until a car comes through and ripples the heck out of everything):

We had another school shooting a couple of days ago. Ho hum, right? We sent out compassion, our "we're with you forever" messages right on schedule. And while our "thoughts and prayers" are floating over a small Texas town, just like they've floated over a small Florida town, a small Connecticut town, a small Colorado town, a small Pennsylvania Amish town, and more, our real thoughts and prayers focus on what to do about it, or what not to do about it.

Because guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns don't bully people, people bully people. And guns don't wear black trench coats in the heat of a spring Texas day, people wear trench coats in the heat of a spring Texas day. Guns don't get overly upset when someone shuns their advances, people do...  You know the drill.

Similar vein, different subject: plastic bags.

There's a movement to ban the plastic bags we get when we pick up groceries, or clothes, or plant food or convenience items, or prescriptions - they're ubiquitous, the darn things. (And without them, we'd not have a convenient way to get our cat litter into the trash - unless of course we start leaving it on the yards of people who don't pick up after their dogs on our yard, maybe?)

The big blue states of California (which saw a 72% drop in plastic bag waste on a cleanup day the year after the bill was passed) and New York, where the governor is being forced to the left by an actress, are in the thick of it.

Retailers say it's unnecessary, expensive, paper bags aren't viable replacements, yadda yadda yadda...
And this morning on a news report, I heard the ultimate shutdown of these attempts at protecting the environment: plastic bags don't cause pollution, people do.

Another story I heard talked about a requirement, also in California, that soon new home construction will have to include solar panels.  Locally, builders are not excited about that, concerned that the added costs of installing the panels could price people out of the new home market.

So, builders don't price people out of the market, solar panels do?  That doesn't make any sense: solar panels, which are inanimate objects, cannot price anyone out of the housing market, that would have to be the builders, right?

I'm sure I could find many more examples of this stuff, where no 'things' are bad, only people are bad.
Except - -think about it:

• autonomous cars, where there's a driver who fails to take control of the car and allows it to crash? We don't blame the person, we still blame the car...
• technological assistants that spy on us, track us, all that stuff:  we don't blame the person who bought the darn things, we blame the devices... 
• failing airbags? They're supposed to protect us if we get into a crash, but we don't blame the driver who has the accident...
• costs of prescriptions, costs of  air ambulance trips, other health care costs? Blame the companies who make the items, operate the items, sell the insurance, but not the people who are getting sick...

So, then, what is the logic?  Are we supposed to blame the thing when it costs people money, but we blame the people when it takes the lives of others?  Well, no, that's inconsistent - because guns. 

Do we blame the thing when it harms people in some way, outside their control? That works on air ambulance and health care stuff, but it doesn't work on guns when children get shot in schools, people get shot in churches, and movie theaters or medical offices or on Army bases or college campuses or in Walmart parking lots... 

Do we blame people when they're stupid, such as with pollution?  Well, that doesn't work either - because isn't a person who blindly trusts an electronic spy in their homes and then is shocked when something goes wrong also stupid? Or when the autonomous car fails to do what it's supposed to, and so does the person?

I think it's clear. No matter what, there's a person behind everything that's either good, bad or indifferent. And the stuff that we think is good or indifferent can turn out to be bad when put in the hands of the wrong person. And of course, something that can be bad, if used differently, can turn into something good.

But that relies on people to identify the options, understand the implications, and make good decisions, with the best of intentions. And we've seen how that goes, right?

I think we have to protect ourselves from all of those people, and there's really only one solution.

We're stuck with the people we have, kind of like we're stuck with school shootings and environmental issues and science deniers and sexual harassers and religious zealots of any faith who can not just Joe Biden literally but actually literally justify anything and everything by finding a verse in their religious book of choice, and terrorists of any stripe and unethical politicians and and and...

So we have to ban more people.

And we have to start right now. 

Sunday School 4/3/22

There were some interesting conversations in the classrooms yesterday, including the one between Margaret Brennan and NYC Mayor Eric Adams on Face the Nation. 

Brennan seemed hell-bent on hitting him from both the left and the right on crime. Noting NY has "some of the toughest gun laws in the country," she first asked "where are the guns coming from?" Her next question, such as it was? 

But you know that acknowledging that and having some of the toughest gun laws in the country will have critics say, well, look, it makes no difference if you have tight gun laws.

That was followed up by "So why aren't the laws working?" and, finally, "It sounds like you're expecting more executive actions or orders from the president to do this because none of it's going to get through Congress."

I think Adams, a 22-year veteran of the NYPD, did a poor job with her questions. He didn't mention the Iron Pipeline, which is how illegal guns get to NYC and the rest of New York. He said his anti-gun team had "removed over 20-something guns off the street," while other reports show 85 'ghost guns' alone - not counting other illegal guns - had been recovered by early March. 

Worse than that, he didn't push back at all on her ridiculous suggestion that gun laws weren't working. He said "We need to stop criticizing good, proper law enforcement with the proper proactive things to keep guns out of the hands of young people..." But what he didn't say - and what no one else says, either - spoke louder than what he did say. 

This is how people must answer this question, every time it's asked.

Show me a single law that is 100% effective. Laws against voter fraud, DWI, white collar crimes, child abuse, drug possession, motor vehicle laws, rape and murder, insurrection, other violent crimes... no law is 100% effective - but they still work, either as a deterrent to prevent crimes, or to get criminals off the streets. Critics should imagine a world without any of these "ineffective" laws, and tell us how much they'd like living in it.

He also failed to call out Congress for their inaction, another opportunity missed. 

George Stephanopoulos talked with Ron Klain, President Biden's chief of staff, on This Week. Crime came up in that classroom, too. Here's the bizarre first question on this topic. 

How did Democrats get on the wrong side of the crime issue that's coming up right now, especially in the wake overnight another killing in Sacramento, at least six dead in a mass shooting?

Hmm... Do we even know the party affiliation of the perps, or the victims, in this shooting? And is there a specific policy that got the Dems "on the wrong side" of this crime? George didn't elaborate on any of that, so we may never know. 

Klain doesn't think Dems are on the wrong side of it; he pointed to Biden's plans for "for robust funding of police," part of which was in the omnibus bill Congress passed last month.

We also want to make sure we have in place police reform and community violent intervention to help reduce crime. We have a plan to fight crime. Congress is making progress on that.

He also said the administration's 

working very hard to be at the forefront of efforts to both control crime and have balanced and sensible policing. We think we can do both. That's what we stand for. And that's the plans we put forward to the Congress.

On crime of a different type, George asked if a NY Times report saying "Mr. Biden confided in his inner circle that he believed former president Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted. He has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor" was true.

Klain said he's never heard Biden say that, or "advocate the prosecution of any person." And, he reminded George that that Biden promised decisions on who gets prosecuted would not be handled in the White House.

Only Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, in the modern era, believed that prosecution decisions should be made in the Oval Office... We have returned the practice that every other president, Democratic and Republican, has had since Watergate, other than Trump, to let those decisions be made at the Justice Department. The president has confidence in the attorney general to make those decisions, and that's where those decisions should be made.

When asked, Klain confirmed that POTUS: hasn't had any contact with DOJ on the Hunter Biden investigation, was "confident Hunter Biden didn't break the law" and was "confident his family didn't cross any ethical lines." 

Finally on G-G-G-Ginni and the Texts, any pending legislation on ethics for the Supreme Court, and whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from January 6th-related cases, Klain said he wasn't familiar with the specific legislation; the administration's position continues to be that the January 6th Committee and DOJ are the right places for exploring the insurrection and should be allowed to do their work; and that it's not the White House's place to stick its nose into what the Supremes do.

What's-his-name talked with Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press. The only 'crime' they talked about was Crimea. I was kind of surprised; after all, she's a Dem, and part of a major international child sex trafficking crime syndicate, and she and Bill have had all those people killed over the years.

Asked about the "moment" the Dems are having, on "what the party stands for," and where it stands - to the left, to the left, or closer to the center, Clinton said the hand-wringing "was in their DNA" and that it happens whether they're in power or not.

She thinks Biden is doing a good job, and said she's

not quite sure what the disconnect is between the accomplishments of the administration and this Congress and the understanding of what's been done and the impact it will have on the American public, and some of the polling and the ongoing hand-wringing. I've always thought that the best politics is doing the best job you can do. And there's a lot that Democrats can talk about in this upcoming midterm.

Of course, she's "well aware that midterms are obviously always difficult for the party in power." But, 

we've got a great story to tell. And we need to get out there and do a better job of telling it. And for those who, you know, say it hasn't gone far enough, that's always the chorus in Democratic Party politics. But I would add that in Republican Party politics, you have an even greater disconnect. Unfortunately, most of that party has now gone to the, you know, to the extreme and are saying and doing things that have no basis in reality. So, we've got a good case to make if we get our focus in the right place to do it.

They surely do need to get out there and tell the story! And, there was another thing the Dems need to do. 

And, frankly, standing up to the other side with their craziness and their calls for impunity and nuttiness that we hear coming from them, I don't think the average American, frankly, wants to be governed by people who live in a totally different reality.

If only...

See you around campus. 

Some, All, or None of the Above

Pretend, for the sake of argument that this was the school shooting that is the one that changes everything. Columbine didn't, and Sandy Hook didn't. So pretend this is the one.

Pretend, for the sake of argument,  that we actually are inspired and want to make changes, across a wide spectrum, to try and make a difference.

Pretend, for the sake of argument, that your elected representatives at the school, local, state and national level are motivated to listen to you and do whatever it is you suggest to keep your children safe.

Pretend, for the sake of argument, that you are in control. I know, I know - that's a huge bit of pretending, I get it -- but just pretend.

Here's your list of options, based on what I've seen on various news and social media platforms. Know that none of these will work, because if a person really wants to commit mayhem, they'll find a way - that's what we're told, anyway, when some suggests changing gun laws. 

Know that  individually,  these might have no impact, but that collectively, they might make a difference --and choose as many as you think we should try.

1. Ban large-capacity magazines, clips, etc. so that a person would have to load their gun more often, making it take longer for them to commit mass mayhem and giving people more time to, hopefully, escape.

2. Ban new sales of the 'mass-shooting' rifle -- the AR-15 and similar weapons, and implement a buy-back program to get as many of them off the street as possible.

3. Ban sales of bump-stocks and similar items that make it easier to kill more people in a short period of time.

4. Ban sales of guns to anyone who is not old enough to purchase alcohol.

5. Ensure that the military is reporting all less-than-honorable discharges to the national background check system, and do not allow them to purchase any kind of gun, and that this reporting is timely - as in, immediately upon discharge. And fire anyone in the military hierarchy who failed to ensure this reporting occurred as required.

6. Close the 'boyfriend' loophole, which allows a person who commits violence against a partner to whom they are not married to purchase a gun, and treat these people the same as those who abuse their spouse.

7. Establish a ten-day waiting period on the purchase of all guns - handguns, medium guns, long guns, whatever - to bring consistency to the process, and to allow sufficient time for the background check process to occur.

8. Pay gun manufacturers not to make guns, just like we pay farmers not to grow crops.

9. Tax packages of ammunition the same way we tax packages of cigarettes. Add a user fee on the sale of every gun. Use this money as startup cash to pay for whatever needs to be paid for (see #11 and #12, for starters).

10. Close all background check loopholes. Private sales, gun shows - whatever the gaps, close them.

11. Secure our school buildings: locks on external doors, cameras, badge readers, metal detectors, security offices and security officers - real ones, not the kind you see at many offices - at entry doors, double door entries, limited number of doors with external handles, etc.

12. Secure the classrooms: bullet-proof glass in the windows and doors; panic buttons for teachers to warn the office and local police of a threat; doors that truly lock from inside and cannot be forced open.

13. Arm teachers, if they are willing, provided that the weapons they're assigned can be secured in their classrooms so that they don't fall into the wrong hands, and that they're carefully screen and can prove proficiency with their weapons (something that is not required for purchasing one, by the way).

14. Go back to saying the Pledge of Allegiance in schools every day.

15. Re-institute school prayer.

16. Ban violent video games, television shows, lyrics, movies, poetry, fiction and non-fiction writing, and any other art forms which can project violence.

17. Enter mental health records into the background check system, regardless of the patient age, and never allow anyone who has had any mental health issues to legally purchase guns or ammunition.

18. Stop prescribing medications that can have mental health related side effects (depressions, thoughts of suicide, hyperactivity, manic behaviors and so on).

19. Ban contributions to politicians from any gun rights groups.

20. Wring our hands, offer thoughts and prayers, and as Paul Ryan said, count our blessings, whatever that means.

Have at it -- some, all, or none of the above?

What Kind of Problem Do We Have? Pick One.

I've had lots of gun conversations in this blog, and with friends around the lunch table, with family at the dinner table, and with total strangers on comment boards and the like.

Generally, my positions and beliefs are as follows:

• I believe that having as many guns as people in America is a problem; I don't know who has 'my gun' but I've never met them, I have no idea what their intentions are, and I wish they had asked me first. 
• I believe in reasonable gun control, including background checks for all gun sales at gun shows, stores, and online.
• I believe you should have more magazines on your coffee table than bullets in your magazine. 
• I believe that, if  you have a family member with a mental illness, you should know better than to keep guns in your house. 
• I would not for a single moment feel more comfortable if every Tom, Dick and Harry was wandering around wearing a sidearm in plain sight, much less carrying it in their shorts or their socks or their shoes or wherever one conceals a weapon.

I don't like that people kill police officers. Ever.  I also believe that probably 99% of police officers would like to go through their entire career and never shoot, much less kill anyone - black or white, Christian or Muslim, child, teenager or adult, armed or unarmed, on drugs or stone cold sober.

I truly believe that some people are too foolish or stupid to be allowed anywhere near a firearm of any kind, and that we should have a way to weed them out and prevent them from owing guns.

• I think it's ridiculous that so many people get shot in or around Walmarts.
• I believe we have a problem when kids and parents accidentally kill children with guns. 
• When a person accidentally shoots himself in the leg, in the head, in the head, in the testicles, in the testicles, in the testicles, in the penis, in the foot, taking a selfie, defending a Muslim-free gun store, trying out his new holster, in the girlfriend, in the girlfriend, in the girlfriend, etc., I admit to less-than-charitable name-calling and a lack of compassion, as I shake my head.

So, if we don't have a 'gun problem' in America, what kind of problem do we have, that other civilized countries don't seem to have?

(1) I think the publicity we give people who commit heinous crimes like the Roanoke murders, the Houston police officer execution, the Sandy Hook shootings, the movie theater killing, and on and on, does more harm than good. If you're a wanna be famous nutjob, this is a surefire way to get what you're looking for.

I would prefer we never show the name or face of the person who committed the crime on television, in magazines, or anywhere else; instead, we should flood the airways and pages and the cloud with pictures and stories of the victims, whether police officers or television reporters or folks on dates or innocent children in school.

(2) Further, the lengths to which we go to 'define' these shootings, or the bastards who commit them, makes the situation worse.  Channeling Hillary Clinton here,

Was it racially motivated, or was it because the person was mad at his mother and father, or was it because of violent video games or television shows, or was it because the guy liked to play with guns, or had a mental illness, or thought the gun wasn't loaded, or had a grudge against his employer, or had a hatred for Muslims or Christians, or didn't like the military, or had a run-in before with one of the victims, or thought the best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, or because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they'd go kill someone?

What difference - at this point, what difference does it make?

We struggle to determine whether we should call something terrorism, or a hate crime, or workplace violence, or domestic violence, or some other identifier. Who benefits from that? Not the victims, not their families and loved ones, and frankly not the rest of us. In reality, all it does is make excuses for people who have committed very bad acts.

(3) Even if we know, or think we know, or believe we have ascertained the 'reason' for the crime, we respond in ways guaranteed to inflame.

Case in point? The Charleston shootings.  The killer has racist tendencies, so the obvious answer, of course, is to remove the Confederate Flag from the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse. Because no one will ever shoot up a black church again, now that the offending flag is down.

Case in point?  New York's SAFE Act, after Sandy Hook. Some good ideas, some not so good - but crammed down everyone's throat, because Governor Andrew Cuomo knew there was no other way to get something passed. In the aftermath, we have calls for full repeal, even from people who agree with much of what's in the law, because of how it was done.

Case in point? The NRA declaring that the reason why people get killed in these horrific shootings is not because someone pulled a trigger, but because we have 'gun-free zones.' (Except, of course, when they thought it was OK that we had gun free zones.)

(4) We treat guns differently than anything else that threatens us. One person tries a shoe bomb, so everyone takes off their shoes before getting on a plane.  Heaven forbid we talk about closing loopholes in gun laws - because while we have no problem stripping in front of strangers at every airport, don't dare make us prove we're OK to purchase or own a gun.

(5) The Colorado movie theater killer was just sentenced, after what's been described as a parade of pain, to a term of life in prison for each of the 12 people he murdered, plus 3318 years in prison for wounding another 70 people.

The crime occurred three years ago; there was no doubt about his guilt, and whether he was sane or suffering from mental illness, there is no excuse for what he did, and he does not deserve rehabilitation. Should it take three years (sometimes longer) for the outcome to be known? Should we have an option for juries and defense attorneys, one that allows for a verdict or plea of 'guilty, but insane' which will guarantee the person never sees the light of day?  And does anyone really benefit from a sentence, and a sentencing production, like this, or does it just add to the murderer's fame?

(6) We have a huge 'us vs. them' mentality in America: rich vs poor, citizen vs. immigrant, Christian vs. everyone, state vs. federal government, black vs. white, this 'life' vs. that 'life', government vs. teacher, suburb vs urban, gun owner vs. non gun owner, pro-birth vs. pro-choice, reporter vs. interviewee, and so on. We seem to thrive on our differences, and forget our similarities.

Combine that mentality with our time where anyone, (like me, and this blog), can say anything we want, any time we want, and find an audience for whatever we say. This gives equal voice to ideas from the fringes as to those from the mainstream, and I think ultimately contributes to the general lack of respect and increased vitriol that we see these days.

What does all of this do? Individually we might be able to counter the effects of these issues, but when taken together, they paralyze us from actually doing anything about gun violence, or preventing the wrong people from getting guns, or doing anything about mental health, or about our frequently slow and prodding system of justice. In the end, is that what we really want? I honestly don't know.

Do we have a gun problem in America? We can, and will, continue to disagree on that, I'm sure. But one thing I do know is, no one has ever committed a similar mass murder with a bathtub.

Sunday School 5/15/22: Extra Credit

For your Extra Credit, I'm continuing the discussions from the Sunday School classrooms on the shooting in Buffalo, NY which left 10 dead and three wounded.

I decided to see what the Meet the Press panel had to say about things. What's-his-name had Rev. Al Sharpton; Susan Page (USA Today); Matt Bai (WaPo); Al Cardenas, a GOP strategist, and Ashley Parker (WaPo) in for the chat.

Reverend Al started things off, describing where we start t0 address the "toxic stew" of white supremacy, guns, and a "permissive Internet culture" for sharing the toxicity and hate. He said we need to change the tone nationally, and relayed his first thoughts when he started hearing the news out of Buffalo.

President Biden needs to call a summit meeting of Black, Jewish, Asian leaders and sit down and talk about the growing problem of hate crimes, and that this government will not stand by and allow this to happen. 

The tone needs to be such that folks like the perpetrator know that the federal government is watching them, will not tolerate the hate that's being spread, and "will come down on them." And it's not just against Blacks, but Jews, Asians, LGBTQ, Latinos - "it's hate everywhere." 

Cardenas was tasked with talking about how there aren't "enough leaders on the right" to call out the hatemongers.

Listen, there used to be political parties...there used to be serious politicians who would step up and speak out against these kinds of things. When David Duke ran for office, hey, I spoke out as party chairman. Others did. It was well known that he was an individual on his own, not part of a family. Now, it's to the contrary. People keep silent, and that silence is interpreted in ways that are not healthy. I'll tell you this. I'm frustrated in America that we're so incapable of doing things.

He thought, after George Floyd was killed and we had all the demonstrations, things would change. He thought the same after Parkland, and the Pulse nightclub shootings. 

But when you look at this, the frustration in America has to do with the fact that horrific things are happening, government's not doing anything, and political leaders are not doing anything. And that's what the calamity is. 

Parker said "the other component of this, of course, is guns." Tone matters, as Sharpton said; it matters "incredibly."

But then you look at how all of these hate crimes are committed, and they are all committed with guns. And this is an area where Congress has been able to do absolutely nothing. There will be – you saw people you were interviewing talking about sensible gun reform. But you look at Sandy Hook. You look at kindergarteners massacred. You look at Mother Emanuel, a shooting in a church. You look at what happened in Las Vegas at the country music concert. Guns have now touched every aspect of society, and Congress has been able to do absolutely nothing.

Page spoke of the feeling of helplessness we have, after each of these incidents, and said "there are, in fact, things that we could do."

Law enforcement could do more to surveil these toxic sites. Social media companies could do more to bring them down. The news media could do more to cover them. Lawmakers could do more to find some kind of common ground on guns. And Americans could stand up and say, "These shootings, these hate shootings do not reflect America. This is a radical fringe." Americans need to stand up and say, "We won't stand for this anymore."

Bai, who covered Columbine back in 1999, said these mass shootings are "now a part of the culture. It's a recurring thing." And while he agrees with Parker that "Congress has done absolutely nothing," he might disagree with Reverend Al.

...I don't think – and we may disagree about this. I'm certain, you know, I can have a disagreement with a lot of people – I don't think this is a more hateful, more racist country than it was 25 years ago, certainly not 50 years ago. I do think we have a segment of our political leadership that has emboldened and legitimized a very extreme and dangerous segment of our political dialogue. And they have to take responsibility for that. There's a culpability for that. And it is tied to the violence. 

That's the problem, then: that no one takes responsibility for legitimizing the hate; or, the problem is, it's "an organizing tool", said What's-his-name; or, the problem is that it's been "normalized." That last one's what Reverend Al thinks.

You have to remember, this is an 18-year-old that is accused in Buffalo. When he was 15, Charlottesville happened. The president of the United States at that time said, "There are good people, or fine people, on both sides." So, this gives them comfort... a tone was set while this guy was a kid, being impressionable, that this is all right to be marching, saying, "Jews will not replace me." That's what he saw at 15 years old. And he saw it from the White House.

Parker reminded everyone that Joe Biden ran for president because of what happened in Charlottesville. "And now, you look at what's happening, and it feels like nothing has changed. The culture is the exact same." 

Another thing that's the same is that "...a whole bunch of Republicans in Congress" scream about free speech whenever anyone tries to deal with this kind of domestic terrorism, according to What's-his-name.

Page said that free speech is important - but, she said, it's "not a license to endorse things like replacement theory, this terrible, terrible theory that there's an elite, many of them Jews, trying to replace America with a Black and Brown nation to dilute the power of white people. That is un-American."

Bai, who said he's "as close to a free speech absolutist as you're probably going to find," believes that "free speech is threatened in a lot of corners of society," but that speech "demands leadership."

When you have a society that is free, you also have to have a society with leaders who stand up for morality and for the right instincts in the culture so that you don't take things that are on the margins of the society, as you say, and bring them into the mainstream and legitimize them. We have failed on that count. And we continue to fail. And these are the consequences. 

It's "now a part of the culture." "We're incapable of doing things." "The government isn't doing anything." "Political leaders aren't doing anything." "Nothing has changed."  "We have failed. And we continue to fail." "Americans need to stand up and say, we won't stand for this anymore." "And these are the consequences."

It's hard to disagree with them, isn't it?

See you around campus.