Another
mass shooting! No, wait, another one! What, another one? Wait!
Gilroy, El
Paso and Dayton had mass shootings in the last few days. We are numb;
twenty-nine mass shootings so far this year. It is, as one commentator said, “It’s
the new common, but it’s not normal.” I spent last weekend in Yosemite National
Park without wifi and spotty reception on the phone. Truth be told, we
shouldn’t take phones and tablets to a place so majestic. It was a lesson in
how attached we have become to those little computers and how connected we are
to the rest of the world.
We only
had a hint of what was happening outside the forest. It was uncomfortable not
knowing the details. The beauty of nature should be our normal, should be our tranquilizer,
and should be our common. But, it isn’t, is it?
Mass
shootings, one after another, bring out all usual suspects to cure our ills. We
know them by heart: guns don’t kill, people do; we have to get the guns off the
street; we need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill; we need
better background checks. This time, we heard some new ones: it’s the video
games, it’s the culture of hate, it’s the white supremacists. Sunday news
programs showed appropriate amounts of hand wringing, as usual. It will all be
for naught, until the next mass shooting, in the next few days, when we will
start all over again.
The
President called for an end of hate in America, and lots of prayers.
Nothing
changes, because we love our guns, for some valid reasons but most not so valid.
We have more guns in the US than we have people. Actually, I don’t have a
problem with that, if people have guns for the right reason. If someone
wants to go hunting, fine, own a hunting gun. If a rancher needs to protect his
or her livestock, fine. If a person likes to shoot competitively, skeet shoot
whenever. But let’s be honest about it, hunters don’t need AK47’s to kill Bambi’s
father. Guns of war have no place except on the battlefield. Automatic and
semi-automatic weapons have no place in the home or on the street, and arguing
about the precise definition of each is wasted energy. Most countries outlaw
handgun ownership. We don’t need them either. Some people want them to protect
their home and families, or for self-defense; they buy into a huge myth. There
is no valid evidence that guns are effective protection, except as
intimidation.
When
someone wants to buy a gun, they submit to a not very thorough computerized background
check of their criminal history. It only takes a few minutes. In other
countries, the background check is a real background check that can take three
to six months. It includes an interview with the local police, certifications
from doctors, as well as statements from neighbors and friends about the
applicant’s behavior and suitability to have a gun. Guns and ammunition are sold
only to people who have a license. Some states don’t even require a background
check. Most gun shows exempt people from background checks. None of these
background checks, it seems to me, fly in the face of the Second Amendment.
There is
too much hatred. Leadership at the top cannot escape complicity with the White
Nationalist and Nativists when it doesn’t condemn anti-immigrant riots in the
streets, saying there are good people on both sides of the argument.
Our
President didn’t pull any triggers this weekend, and he said there was no place
for hatred. However, a couple of weeks earlier, he basked in the limelight of a
crowd of MAGAs shouting, “Send her back,” referring to a duly elected member of
Congress. That rally may go down as one of the most racist’s events in the
history of our country; it gave permission for every immigrant hater to come
out of the woodwork with guns at the ready.
We rely on
our leaders to help us find our better angels, not to point us in the opposite
direction. We rely on our leaders to look at the facts and understand that
there is a culture of hatred; a toxic brew is how one pundit described it,
growing across the land and much of Europe. We need them to lead us to be
better than we are, to help us curb the hatred that leads to these killings. We
need them to get weapons of war off the streets, out of our schools, and out of
our stores.
There were
nearly one-hundred-thousand people in the seven-mile-long valley this weekend.
There was little noise except when the rangers fired beanbags to convince a
bear to leave the campground, or the helicopter helping with a search and
rescue. The solitude, the politeness of the people, the diversity of the
visitors from all over the world, and the opportunity to be free of distractions
should be the new normal, the common. If we need to be shocked, one view of any
of the domes of Yosemite will give us all the awe we crave.
Returning to reality will not be an easy
transition.
