Goodbye to Texas?

 

There’s a song called, “Leavin’ Old Texas.” The cowboy/singer laments that they’ve roped and fenced the cattle range, “and the people there are all so strange.” Well, it’s true—the open range is fenced, the mythic days of the cowboy are gone, and some of the people in Texas are purely strange now.

But when a writer friend posted on Facebook that she didn’t understand why anyone would live in Texas and not leave, let alone move there, I jumped to our state’s defense. Possibly she was referring to the strict abortion restrictions, so much in the news with the Kate Cox case recently. Or maybe she meant the absence of gun control—no training, no screening, no license. Want to carry a concealed gun? Be our guest. Or perhaps it’s the troubles at the border with record number of illegal immigrants last month. Maybe it’s the restrictions on what can be taught in classrooms, from kindergarten through college—don’t even think of mentioning DEI, which is now outlawed. (How you can outlaw an abstract concept is beyond me, but Gov. Greg Abbott has managed it.) Maybe she meant book bans—we lead the nation in the number of titles marked for “consideration” or actually banned. There are many reasons to leave Texas for states, even countries, where there is more personal freedom and you are not forced to accept the state doctrine. (Does that echo of Nazi days? The state doctrine? Yes, it does).

I haven’t seen statistics on how many people leave Texas because of our extreme right-wing politics, but I know from personal experience—friends who have thrown their hands up in the air and said, “I’m through. I’m leaving.” Often they are couples of child-bearing age. And new corporations? Again, I don’t know statistics, but I have heard of companies that refuse to relocate here—despite our attractive tax laws and other incentives—because employees with families would not follow along.

I credit Texas’ disastrous reputation to Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton. I’m not sure what fascination these men hold for Texans, except perhaps the habit of voting Republican and a blind, inbred of fear of Democrats that makes it hard to pull any lever, mark any ballot except the red one. Why would you ever vote for a man who puts razor wire in a river to injure and kill people? Or who sent poorly dressed, hungry migrants by bus across the country to a northern city where no provisions have been made for their unannounced arrival? If you live in a small town or rural area, why vote for a man who desperately wants to close the school that is the center of your community? It makes no sense.

But I digress. When I read that post, angry as I am at our state government, I immediately felt defensive, compelled to leap to the defense of Texas. I am not a native Texan, but I have lived here almost sixty years, and my two careers—as an author and as a publisher—have relied heavily on the history and literataure of this state. I feel invested in it, and I’ll be darned if a mean little man like Abbott is going to ruin Texas for me and my family.

There’s so much to treasure about our state, politics aside. We have, I suspect, the most varied landscape in the 50 states. In Texas, you can go from beach to mountains, from the stark, spare country of South Texas to the lush high plains. We have forests and pastures and rolling hills and vast expanses of empty land. Texans value their history—okay, we now pretty much agree much of the Alamo legend is in large part myth, but there’s still valuable history in the basic story. And in Sam Houston’s Runaway Scape and defeat of Santa Anna’s troops at San Jacinto. There’s history in the early cattle drives and the gradual shift from an agrarian to an urban economy in too much of the state. We have a proud and strong literary tradition, with writers who chronicled Texas history and wrote their own versions of it, from J. Frank Dobie and his pals to Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy, and Elmer Kelton. Women writers too—Sarah Bird and Sandra Cisneros come to mind. Dr. Ron Tyler has given us several books documenting important artists of our state. Texas food, once mocked as brown food, can compete with upscale servings across the country. We have James Beard award-winning chefs and upscale restaurants with offerings for the sophisticated palate. We also have Tex-Mex, chili, barbecue, and down-home food.

Enough singing the praises of the state I love. My point is Texas is too wonderful to abandon to the narrow minds of right-wing politics. I am not leaving. Greg Abbott was not always governor and will not always be. I will stay to fight his inhumane policies, joining such groups as Mothers Against Greg Abbot, the Texas Democratic Party, and Beto O’Rourke’s Power to the People and speaking out whenever I feel the need. Texas needs to regain its proud reputation, and I want to help. How about you?                               

 

Back-to-school Sunday

Our country—or the advertising industry—seems to have a special name for every day: Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, Love Your Dog Day, Eat More Vegetables Day, and so on. Churches have special days too, besides holy holidays, like Youth Sunday and Reformation Sunday, but I recognized one today and wondered if churches consciously name the last Sunday before school Back-to-School Sunday. The whole service had a different feel about it, an anticipatory vibrancy.

In my family I’m very aware of what our minister called the energy and buzz that surrounds the opening of school. Jacob heads into his senior year in high school, Morgan begins college at Texas Tech, and the rest continue their educational path without milestones. I am so proud of each of them and so excited to watch their progress this year. But a part of me is a bit frightened, and I pray for my family. The church service this morning brought that home to me.

At our church after summer absences, we had most ministers back and an almost full choir, a sure sign that the new year begins. The service was highlighted by dozens of youngsters, maybe pre-K to third grade, who crowded the chancel steps and the floor in front, most with their backpacks, to be blessed. Perhaps this should be called Backpack Sunday.

There they were, with a few anxious parents hovering about.  Be still my heart! It has been ten or twelve years since Jacob was in that crowd, but it seems like yesterday. And those children looked so young and innocent and vulnerable.

It suddenly hit me about those sweet youngsters—and my grands. They may not only be nervous, which the minister acknowledged, but they may be downright scared. Is this the year a shooter will visit their school? Will they survive the year? Texas has done nothing significant to protect them or control guns since the massacre at Uvalde. You can stil buy an assault rifle at eighteen with no license, no training, and only a cursory background check. Schools will have armed personnel, which may well lead to more deaths, not fewer. I suspect more than a few schools, desperate to conform to the law, are hiring untrained personnel. And more guns just mean more shooting and more chance of accidents.

There has been one special session of the legislature, at Abbott’s call, to deal with taxes, and apparently, he will call another to try once more to push through his pet idea of school vouchers, which will render public education more ineffective than ever. But no special session on guns. Legislators were busy during regular session banning books and outlawing drag queens. The argument, of course, is that we must protect our precious children. But don’t dare come for the parents’ guns! Somehow too many Texans don’t feel their children are threatened by guns, despite the numerous school shootings our state has seen under Abbott’s governance.

Abbott, whose firm hand controls what goes on in this state, is not a man known for his compassion. And he makes no exception for children. In addition to nearly turning a blind eye to school shootings, he is allowing children to be killed at the border by razor wire and by neglect on buses illegally transporting asylum seekers to “safe” cities. He has issued not one word of regret about the child’s body found floating in the Rio Grande nor about the infant that died on a bus to Chicago. He may, however, have gotten too big for his britches: assaulting asylum seekers violates the Geneva Convention, which theoretically could leave him liable for charges from the World Court at The Hague. And now, Texas twin politician brothers, the Castros, are asking President Joe Biden to halt Abbott’s forced bus trips. Abbott’s entire handling of the border violates Federal law and is now in the courts, but for asylum-seeking parents with young children, the courts move way too slowly.

You may think it’s a leap from those earnest little kids on the chancel steps this morning—some did look a bit bored—to immigrant children dying at Texas’ hands, but it’s really not. Those deaths—and pray there are not more—speak to what kind of state we live in, what kind of people we are, because we tolerate them. We elect the men and women who pass harsh laws without a trace of humanitarianism, who tolerate the far-right demands for guns, including assault rifles which no civilian needs. If we want to protect the kids at my church, where my grandson was not too many years ago, we have to protect all children. We have to extend our love.

“Three things remain: faith, hope, and love, and of these love is the greatest.”

Saving the children

 

Last week I wanted to refer to a comment that a friend had made on one of my blog posts. This meant scrolling through recent posts until I found the right one. It was an educational experience. Seeing my blogs as a whole, I realized my voice was—there’s no other word for it—shrill! Granted, most of what I post is shared material, not my own writing. But it’s still shrill and angry and not peace-making.

An old friend told me long ago that because she’s such an activist, she makes sure to post about her grands, her garden, her dogs and cats, so that people will know that there’s a warm, fuzzy side to her. Except for food-related posts, I have fallen down on that end of blogging.

Shrill is what men criticize about women in public affairs or politics when what they really want to say is, “Shut up, sit down, and tend to your knitting. Let us men handle the affairs of the world.” I surely don’t agree with that attitude, but I don’t want to be known as a shrill female. Thoughtful, insightful, concerned—yes, all of those things. But shrill? No. I resolved to change my tone, perhaps post less often.

And then Nashville happened. How can any of us remain silent in the face of this recurring butchery of our children? I remembered back in the sixties, before Roe v. Wade, when we were encouraged to vote a one-issue ballot: if a candidate was for women’s rights to their bodies, we should vote for them; if not, nada. It didn’t matter what a candidate’s stance was on any other issue—the decision was made on the basis of the attitude toward abortion.

I am feeling that way again today. Two issues will determine my vote: gun control and abortion. I will not now or ever vote for anyone who opposes reform for those two issues. Yes, I know that saving the climate is crucial and immediate, and voter suppression is a problem, and yeah, I’d vote against any Republican who wants to withdraw support for Ukraine because that says to me they have no understanding of international relationships and do not deserve to hold public office. But those problems are not of immediate concern to me; the lives of children take precedence.

I was still mulling over my shrill voice when I attended church (via LiveStream) Sunday. Russ Peterman’s powerful sermon was about the school shootings. Pointing out that the leading cause of death in school children in this country is violence (and we are the only country for which that is true), he suggested that we are failing our children, failing our responsibility to keep them safe. Oh, some would have us keep them safe from drag queens and books that might enlighten them about our LGBTQ neighbors or the drag queen who reads stories to them, but not safe to live.

A meme on Facebook this week has a seven-year-old telling his mom he doesn’t want to go to school. “Why not?” she asks, and he responds, “I’d rather be dumb than dead.” Think of that. Let it soak in.

Admitting that the solution to gun control is complicated, Dr. Peterman pointed out that we have solved much more complicated problems. My thought was, “Yes, we are about to put men (and a woman) on the moon again, after fifty years.” But we cannot keep our children safe. I sent my kids off to elementary school in the late seventies and eighties—I cannot imagine how I would have felt if there was the slightest possibility of one of them being shot at school.

Dr. Peterman talked about compromise, with both sides trying to see the other side. For me, that’s so hard as to be impossible. When someone writes they will pry his AR-whatever out of his “died hands,” I know what kind of enemy I’m facing. When a Tennessee representative dismisses the whole things with, “We aren’t going to change it,” I know the enemy. I am beyond tired of people who don’t want to get involved or who withdraw for some peace—there is no peace, ever, for parents who lose their children in a shooting. And there is no reason we cannot ban military weapons in the hands of civilians. When Clinton did it, shooting deaths declined dramatically.

So watch for me to continue to be shrill, because I cannot in good conscience not speak out. If you want to tune me out, so be it. Dr. Peterman quoted someone who said, “Our faith does not  allow us to remain silent behind stained glass.” Either you  put your faith to work daily, or you are a Sunday believer.

Fittingly, our church service ended with the singing of “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus.” Jesus, be he prophet or teacher or divine god, loved the little children. How about you?

An apologia: this post is couched in the terms and traditions of Christianity, because that is the faith I know. I recognize that not all of my friends nor all of my readers are necessarily Christian but I am sure the beliefs herein can be adapted to your faith.

How Not to Start the Day

 

Image of Sophie because i needed 
something light-hearted for a somber post.
I refuse to post a picture of an assault weapon.

Well, that was exciting. I’m here to tell you that at 6:10 or so in the morning, it is still very dark. As in pitch-black, feel-your-way-around dark. This morning Sophie and I were up at 5:00 because she was acting strange and staring at the kitchen door. I got up prepared to catch night visitors in the act of vandalizing our cars. I peeped under a shade on the kitchen door. Nothing. Was that movement behind Jacob’s SUV? Was the back of his SUV open? Hard to tell in the total dark.

I decided it was nothing and went back to sleep, only to be startled awake a little after six. Confused at first, I couldn’t figure out where I was nor why I was awake. Then I realized there were no lights. I sleep with a lamp on in my living room and yard lights blazing. I feel guilty about the latter, because I now it disturbs the daily cycles of birds and night critters, but I trade the guilt for a feeling of being safe against night visitors and other unsavory characters.

But this morning I’m not sure if the power made a noise when it went off or if the sudden dark itself woke me, but suddenly there I was awake and a bit disoriented. I reached for my walker and could only find one handle—that’s was the disorientation you get in true dark until your eyes adjust. Finally I made it to the kitchen and peeked under that same shade. Far as I could tell lights were out in the main house and the houses on both sides. Then I ventured into the living room and saw that the neighbors behind me were also dark.

I sat at my desk and turned on the light on my phone, which was suddenly awfully bright. Couldn’t figure out why I would need it, turned it off, and went back to bed. All this time, Sophie was following close by me, confused I’m sure. I wasn’t back in bed long before the lights came back on.

Later I learned that a driver had died in a one-car accident several blocks away. His car was speeding down Forest Park Boulevard, hit the guard rail, flew across open space, hit an electric pole, landed on its side and caught fire. May he rest in peace. Jordan told me the power went off several times, but briefly each time. I guess I slept through the others.

When I finally woke up and made it to my desk, hot tea in hand, I found myself inundated with TV news and analysis of the school shooting in Nashville. Suddenly, I was white hot angry—angry at the shooter, of course, but even angrier at the Republican politicians who tried to brush it off with their tired arguments.

Gym Jordan accuses Democrats of trying to politicize a tragedy. Well, you know what—it is indeed a political issue: Democrats want a ban on assault weapons and reasonable gun control; Republicans want to whine about the second amendment and their rights. (They need to study the second amendment and stop bending it to their wishes.) They want to investigate Hunter Biden and drag queens and Mark Twain’s books, but heaven forbid they should care about let alone protect the lives of America’s children.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, that odious bag of puffery, yells about the gender-bending medications the shooter was taking and how they caused the whole thing. Our children won’t be safe, she claims, until teachers are armed. Oh good job, MTG, what we need is more guns. Does she know how many guns were outside the Uvalde school, waiting while children were slaughtered. A good guy with a gun is not the answer.

Neither can she nor anyone else claim that gender-bending drugs caused this tragedy. Guns did it. Say it out loud: guns killed those children and adults. The shooter was being treated for an emotional problem. Think about this: if assault weapons had been banned, and if strict gun control had kept weapons out of the shooter’s possession because of mental instability, how different would yesterday have been?

With each tragic school shooting, the reasonable among us think maybe this is the one, the one that will galvanize the country, make our leaders and our people realize how wrong this needless slaughter is. How far out of step we are with other civilized nations of the world. And then the furor dies down. Not. This. Time.

I hope every Democrat on every ticket will take courage in hand and campaign on the twin issues of gun control and abortion. Call out the hypocrisy! Call out the callous carelessness about human life, the blind ideas that defy knowledge and studies and medicine. We won years ago with Roe v. Wade, we got an assault weapon ban in 1994, we can do it all again. We just have to be fired up. Please—do whatever you can. Speak out, call  your congressmen. We do not have to live like this.

Amen.

 

Where do we go from here?

 

Is Texas really a political lost cause?

That’s the question a lot of Texas Democrats are asking after yesterday’s midterms. Nationally, the picture was not all bad, as everyone knows by today—may not have been a blue wave, but it was definitely not a red wave, and Democrats scored some significant, unexpected victories while Donald trump, as titular head of the Republican Party, saw some of his special candidates go down in flames.

But in Texas, it was the same old, same old. Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton, that triumvirate of evil, sailed easily into re-election, a bitter defeat for the many of us who backed Beto and his vision of a better Texas. Beto had a firm grasp of the problems facing Texas and offered solutions—school shootings, failure of the grid, the desperation of women with difficult pregnancies. In eight years, Abbott has solved no problems but created new ones or turned a blind eye to existing ones. We believed in Beto—still do. And most of us believe it’s criminal that Paxton, under indictment for seven years, was re-elected. Patrick? Who could approve of the man who spouts such callous ideas as bathroom monitors to detect LGBTQ kids. Patrick, who claims Christianity, has a heart full of hate.

But here we are—stuck with them for another four years, and with a lot of down-ballot sycophants. What’s next? I read today that Beto says he’s in this fight for a lifetime, and I’ve read several members of Mothers Against Greg Abbott swearing to continue that group and its mission. But in the depths of last night I thought of a new, probably unworkable plan.

Instead of an all-out assault or objection, how about negotiation? I don’t know who would represent us, but it seems to me we need immediate relief on two issues. And Abbott is apparently the man who has that power.

The first is the abortion clause which permits the procedure to save a woman’s life. Who’s making that decision? Far as I can tell, it’s politicians and not physicians. I’ve read several horrendous stories of women at death’s door who had to be transported to another state because of an ectopic pregnancy, a nonviable fetus, any one of many things that can go wrong in a pregnancy. In the case of a poor woman without resources, she’s likely to die. Why not review those standards and treat these women before their cases become so desperate. Why put them through a near-death experience when it’s clear that a living or life-sustaining fetus will not emerge? Or that the fetus will be so deformed that it will suffer in the hours or days before its death. Is cruelty the point? Punishing women? Legislators frequently reveal their absolute lack of knowledge about women’s bodies and/or pregnancy—and yet they are making those decisions, setting those standards.

Would Abbott, if approached right, create a panel of physicians who would set some reasonable guidelines instead of the Draconian approach taken today in which doctors know the procedure is needed but are afraid to perform it for fear of the consequences. In God’s name, what kind of society have we become? It has too many similarities, to me, to the burning of witches in New England.

The other area that simply can’t wait four more years is the danger of school shootings. We have kids throughout the state who are terrified to go to school. That’s hardly conducive to learning. Children’s gun deaths have doubled under Abbott, and Texas now has the distinction of the highest number of children killed by gunfire of any state. (As I write those words, I am appalled at how awful that is!) Abbott is a gun aficionado, and he does what we all hope people will not do—imposes his personal beliefs on the entire state. He’ll never sign on to a ban on assault weapons, which was one of Beto’s goals—and maybe a rash remark several years ago that sealed his doom.

But how about stricter controls on assault weapons. It is beyond belief that the  Uvalde shooter, eighteen years old, could buy an assault weapon with no training, no background check. What’s more important, protecting the freedom and rights of a deranged teenager or saving nineteen school children? Law officers generally want more control on the sale of weapons. Why not have a panel of law officers draw up guidelines for preventing these guns from getting into dangerous hands. Personally I think the age limit should be, maybe fifty, but that’s me. There should be rigorous background checks, extensive training emphasizing the killing power of these weapons. Counseling for those who express generalized anger of hostility during the process. We have the knowledge and ability to weed out potentially dangerous people. We’re just not doing it.

Governor Abbott is not a man known for his empathy. He was, as we all know, badly crippled in a freak accident. Instead of making him more empathetic, that accident somehow made him determined that no one else would get the benefit of the large monetary settlement he got. So I don’t know that an appeal to his better sense would work, but if there was strong enough support in the state …. Law enforcement, churches, legislators, parents of school-age children? There are many blocs of people who would enthusiastically support stricter controls, if there were an organized movement.

Or just call me Pollyanna.

A little cooking, a little reading … and a cloudy morning

 

Years ago, when my children were still very young, my newly widowed mom moved from North Carolina to Fort Worth. She lived just a couple of blocks from us, and she ate dinner with us almost every night. She and I team cooked. Since I learned to cook from my mom, I’m sure I learned a lot more during those sessions, though the thing I most remember is that she could not, would not throw away even the tiniest bit of leftovers. It did no good to remind her that two tablespoons of something wouldn’t go far in a family of six. Her solution was to put it in the soup pot.

Now it’s Jordan’s turn. We all eat together maybe three to five nights a week, and we cook in my tiny kitchen. Jordan never really cooked with me when she was young, and she is a good cook with a limited repertoire, so she, too, is learning. Last night we were making steak fingers, but there was more meat than frying pan space, so we cooked in batches. I suggested she fry the first batch, while I coated the second with flour, salt and pepper. It was an exercise in frustration for her.

“How hot?”

“Oh,” I said, “you know. Hot enough to get a crust but not too hot.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Until the pieces have a nice crust.”

Me, a little bit later, “Smells like it’s done to me.” Wonder why she gave me that sarcastic look (if looks can be sarcastic).

Dinner was good. The steak pieces just right. I serve them with lemon, which Jordan remembers from her childhood. I asked if she’d prefer pan gravy, but she said she liked the lemon.

I’m still following stories about educational gag orders. These are the places now in the news for classroom restrictions: All of Florida, and particularly Sarasota County; Bucks County, Pennsylvania, once the home of intellectuals; Keller, Texas, where administration seems to be stepping back on an ill-advised, knee-jerk reaction, which proves negative publicity and public outrage are effective; Jamestown township in Michigan where a small group loudly protested LGBTQ books in the library—they are about .001% of the collection—and defeated a tax proposal to support the library so now, with 85% of its funding gone, the library may have to close. Voter turnout was small, and citizens are fighting back in support of the library.

The day started as cloudy, and I was so encouraged. It was nice not to have the sun beating down. Reminded me of a old Reader’s Digest joke about the man who was vacationing in Florida, woke up, looked out the window, and said, “Another damn sunny day!” But now the sun is shining, and the temperature climbing though it’s not supposed to go over a hundred. One of my Austin friends, writing of the rain and sudden cool weather, said it felt like a fever had broken. I thought it was a perfect description. They are getting rain in Central Texas, and we up north have hopes for the coming week.

That old joke prompts me to ask how many remember Reader’s Digest and its wealth of jokes? When I was young, we had a book that was a compilation of those jokes—oh boy, I almost had that thing memorized. Older and fancying myself a writer, that was one market I really wanted to hit, but it was a tough one. I came close because an established author introduced me to an editor. But I never quite made it. My story was about a teenage girl, the daughter of friends, who was getting in trouble at home, keeping company with the wrong crowd, and was sent to live with us, with our blessing. When her boyfriend got out of prison in another state and came for her, she ran away with him. I had to go to the police station, retrieve her, and send her back home. For a few nights there, my then-husband slept with an iron pipe by the bed. Today, I’m sure it would have been a gun, and the boyfriend would have had a gun. I can’t help thinking today’s proliferation of guns might have meant a totally different and disastrous outcome. Occasionally, an out-of-the-ordinary episode like that jumps into my mind. Maybe I should write that memoir.

And maybe I’m rambling.

Thoughts on school shootings

 

My grandson did not go to school today. There was rumor that a student, with a record of accusations against him, had said he would shoot up the school today. Every parent’s dilemma. I am not sure how the rumor spread, but I gather the principal sent out an email saying there would be officers at every door, and students would be safe. His parents talked to other parents who were keeping their children home and decided to be safe. In their shoes, I would have done the same.

You never expect the problems of the world to come up close and personal, but this one has. I am left with questions, as I’m sure my grandson and his parents are. The young man who made the threat is allowed back in school Wednesday. What will happen then? What steps will the ISD take to ensure student safety? It would be easy to say that by then his bravado will have faded, and maybe he’ll do no more than swagger. But there’s no assurance. Not only do I want my grandson safe, I do not want our beloved high school—all four of my kids went there—to become the next in line to achieve notoriety for a shooting.

Columbine hit us all by surprise. It had never occurred to me, and to most, that students would take guns to school and shoot their classmates. The very idea was appalling, the reality beyond belief. But then it kept happening. And after Sandy Hook and Parkland and too many others, each time we said to ourselves, “This is the one. This surely will galvanize people into action, and we’ll get reasonable gun control measures.” But it never happened, and I don’t want Paschal to be the latest, “This is the one.”

Why don’t we get a handle on this? In what other country, civilized or not, do students shoot each other. Easy—and probably right—to blame the NRA. But these days, the NRA is broke and wheezing out its death rattles—or I hope so. Still legislators won’t vote for gun control. Senator Grassley, that troglodyte from Iowa, voted against a recent bill because it would unfairly punish gun owners. Unfairly? How about killing kids unfairly?

Senator Chris Murphy, a vocal gun control advocate, has said that even the control he pushes for won’t solve the problem. We have a culture of violence in this country that is unequalled in the world at large. The statistics are appalling. Every day in the United States 316 people are shot, 106 killed, twenty-two of them children under seventeen. Every year, 115, 561 people are shot. And yet, a member of our national legislature sends out a Christmas card showing him, his wife, and four children grinning while holding assault rifles, designed for one purpose only and that is to kill other humans. Their Christmas prayer? Santa, bring us some ammo. How, in a free country, can we censor such incredible stupidity.

In schools, it seems to me though I have no statistics, the shooters are often the nerdy kids who don’t fit in—they are not minorities, they are not the “bad” kids, they are the unnoticed. Do we begin with counseling? How do you know what kids are silently calling for help? Ethan Crumbley, of the recent Oxford, Michigan shooting, drew pictures and left messages that were an obvious cry for help. Maybe the answer in part is more education for parents and school administrators.

School shooting are a complex problem, one that nobody seems to come to grips with. I am not opposed to guns for hunting, maybe for self-protection in your home. But assault rifles? Concealed carry? Open carry in restaurants and grocery stores (what in heaven’s name are they afraid of)? Yes, hunters should have their rifles, but any self-respecting hunter would never use an assault rifle against a creature. So it seems to me reasonable gun control, with strict background checks and control over sales, is one answer.

And another is a stepped-up surveillance/detection program in schools. Surely our schools can do a better job of knowing their students, spotting the troubled ones, working with them for prevention, not punishment after the fact. That’s a point that conservative legislators don’t want to get: we need prevention much more than punishment.

My grandson is an ordinary (well of course I think he’s extraordinary) fifteen-year-old boy. He has friends at school, he enjoys school (sometimes more than others), his friends, and golf. He has a great future ahead of him. He will go to school the rest of the week, and I will hold my breath. But I can’t put him in a bubble.

We are all at the mercy of a world gone wacko.

What more can be said about Derek Chauvin?

 

I love sitting at my desk, late at night, looking out the big window to my right at the back yard. It’s peaceful and quiet, flooded with soft light from the fixtures over the door of the main house and at the side of my house. I know, I know—we should treasure the darkness, and I do. But lights in the yard—and a motion sensitive light in the driveway—make me feel safe, even with an electronic gate that is firmly closed. In our neighborhood, we have what we call night visitors—people, usually young men, who check out driveways to see who has left a car unlocked with anything from pocket change to computers available for the taking. Also, just for my own pleasure, I have a light outside my French doors with a screen or something that throws tiny specks of green light on the wall of the back house next to me. I love looking at that display, even when I wake in the night, and have recently discovered that it stays on until about six in the morning. Wasteful, I know, and I should re-set it, but I’m not sure how to do that. So I just enjoy.

Tonight, Jacob was out hitting golf balls against his practice net in the driveway, but now he has gone inside, and all the dogs are in for the night. The yard is quiet and peaceful, and that’s the way I feel. Peaceful.

Like so many across our country, I am relieved, satisfied, ecstatic about the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, though I try to imagine what it would be like to be him and know the country is rejoicing because he’s been convicted. But then, I cannot imagine being him and keeping a knee on a man’s neck for over nine minutes. I want to feel some sympathy, some emotion for any human being, but he makes it hard.

I kept the TV on most of the day, muted, curious to see if the verdict would come back. I knew that if it came today, it would be guilty; if any jurors were unconvinced, it could make for long, drawn out deliberations. I told myself that having twelve jurors agree unanimously to three charges was a long shot, and I was geared not to expect much.

I napped, as I always do, this afternoon—and dreamt that the verdict came back. So I was only a bit surprised to wake up, look at my phone, and see that the verdict was in. I rushed to turn on the TV and got so carried away I did not do my PT exercises. (I suppose I may be forgiven one day’s vacation.) I was struck by the peaceful yet joyous crowds outside the courtroom, the flickering of Chauvin’s eyes as the verdict was read, though he tried to show no emotion, and the passionate speeches by President Biden and Vice-President Harris.

The internet is full of hopeful messages that this is the beginning of a new era in law enforcement, albeit with a recognition that change comes slowly. I don’t know about that. Even as I read all those positive statements, I remembered Sandy Hook. We thought surely that horrific slaughter of innocent children would bring a wave of gun control measures—and nothing happened. After a week or two, the world went on, leaving devastated families to grieve and cope as best they could. The Floyd family has gotten public support—tonight, it was everyone from Al Sharpton to—was that Jesse Jackson in the background? But President Obama went to Sandy Hook, spoke, and cried. I can only hope that this time the nation’s compassion has come out, this time we recognize what’s happening to our country, this time we see that, as the mayor of Minneapolis said, we cannot continue to live this way.

Even as the verdict was being read, a teen-age girl in Ohio called police because girls were fighting outside her house. They arrived and shot the girl who had called four times. And though I haven’t seen blowback, I hear that police across the country are threatening to resign. And a recent interview (was it 60 Minutes?) revealed that police are training Poor Boys and Oath Keepers in police and military tactics. It’s hard to cling to hope in the face of such outrages.

I am, by nature, an optimist, so tonight I cling to hope. I pray that this momentous day marks a starting point for change, that Americans rise up against police brutality and for gun control, that George Floyd did not die in vain. Pray with me, please.

Confused, angry, sad—and some small mishaps

I woke this morning sad and angry and confused, with thoughts tumbling in my mind. It seems today that anger is what binds most of us together. These tragedies are preventable, but politicians stand in the way. I sense a lot of anger on the internet. I wonder how trump and McConnell feel about the overwhelming backlash—and what they surely must recognize as a weak response from Republicans—49 out of 50 red legislators contacted by CNN refused to comment. There was criticism from an Ohio Republican member of the legislature and a stalwart Texas Tea Party supporter announced he will not run again—the fourth this week. The rats are deserting the ship.

Meantime trump woodenly read a speech he had neither written—word choice made that clear—nor read before. In it he blamed everything but guns—and cited the wonderful progress of his administration. Big deal—they outlawed bump stocks after the Las Vegas massacre. He blamed mental health—but he’s the one who made it easier for people with problems to buy guns. He blamed social media, which sounded to me suspiciously like a step toward censoring freedom of speech. He may not have written the speech, but he sure should have okayed it before he read it on national television.

Like everyone, I have my opinion on what should be immediate action: McConnell should haul his broken shoulder back to DC, reconvene the Senate, and consider legislation that the House passed months ago. Why has he stalled? We all know the answer to that. New and immediate legislation should outlaw assault weapons, require strict background checks, outlaw TV and gun show sales, and restore the domestic terrorism branch of the Department of Homeland Security. So clear cut, so simple, so safe.

My apologies. I’ve tried to keep politics out of my blog, but I am too angry, too upset to do it today. On a more personal note, the day didn’t go all that well. My walker almost lost a fight with a plastic cleaner’s bag—try as I might there are still bits of that sheer plastic wrapped around one wheel. That stuff is a wicked enemy. At first, I thought I was marooned and would have to wait until help arrived. My first concern was for the favorite gray sweater in the bag, but I managed to save it intact. Then I pulled endless plastic—and there’s still some left. I don’t expect time will make it go away.

My lunch date forgot about me. Luckily, she was to pick me up, so I wasn’t abandoned at a restaurant. I stewed that maybe she forgot and was waiting impatiently for me at the deli. Turned out okay, because Jordan agreed to pick up a chicken salad sandwich for me from Black Rooster. I love those sandwiches, have half left for my supper. And the lunch is rescheduled for later in the week.

Jacob came out to repay some money he owed me—and woke me from a sound nap to tell me he was repaying it. His presence activated Sophie, who jumped on the bed and began licking my face. I’m afraid I wasn’t gracious to either one, though I have since apologized.

Tomorrow will be a whole new day for me, but our country will still be shadowed by grief and frustration and anger. Maybe I’m a cockeyed optimist, but this time I think we’re all angry enough to effect change. I pray so.

Some Arguments I’m Really Tired of Hearing

Someone’s paying those marchers – if that were true, I know a lot of people who are still waiting for their checks. The survivors of the Parkland massacre are tough, sharp kids who have had enough. They have been well-trained by their school for leadership positions. It’s just that nobody thought this was the direction that leadership would take. They are nobody’s tools and nobody’s fools. And yes, they had help-because they knew how to use the system, to start a Go Fund Me campaign, to publicize their movement, enlist others. Give them credit, and for God’s sake, stop the personal attacks.

Guns don’t kill; people do. If people didn’t have access to rapid-fire weapons with bullets that can dissolve organs and bones, they would not be able to kill at the rate that mass shootings have established. People shoot the guns but the guns do the killing. Something like 3400 school children since Columbine. Appalled? I am.

The Second Amendment protects my right to own a gun: As legal scholars and past members of the Supreme Court have said, that’s a gross misinterpretation. When the second amendment was written, guns were single-shot, muzzle loading weapons. Our Founding Fathers could never have imagined the weapons of today. But the key is the wording, a “well-regulated militia.” That meant a militia with training sessions, an order of leadership, practices, etc. Want that in your life? Enlist in the armed services or join the National Guard. It clearly does not mean a lot of people running loose with guns in their hands.

I need my guns for protection. From what? You fear a military takeover? What chance would you have against military forces? You want to shoot an intruder? Do you know the statistics of deaths to a family member, particularly children, when there are guns in the house? They go up astronomically.

Nobody’s going to take my guns. I got my rights. Nobody is coming for all your guns. This movement is about sane but strict regulations. Hunters should certainly keep their guns (but you really don’t need an AR-15, even for wild hogs.) And within limits citizens should have them for protection. But we need much better laws, and we need to enforce them.

Thanks for listening to the rant. Now, on a lighter note, you know what life is like when the high point of the day is having your passport photo taken. Regulations—and costs—are much stricter these days. My passport expired last year, which means I got it in 2007. If I recall I paid $60 for it. Today, it’s $189 plus you must have it in hand six months before your return date, and it takes six to eight months to process, which means Jordan and I paid an extra fee to something called RushMyPassport.

For the picture, you must not smile, you must not cover your ears with your hair (Jordan had to take off her earrings). The resulting picture is what you expected—pretty grim. All this in preparation for our Great Lakes Cruise next fall—we fly into Toronto and leave from there, but you need a passport these days to go to Canada.

What a world we live in!

Grief and Outrage

No real blog tonight. I was going to write about the joy of old friends, but it seems somehow trivial in the face of the latest school shooting, one with a high number of victims. I grieve for those students in Florida, for the families who lost children, for the children left behind to live in fear that will haunt them forever. I grieve for my country, where one apparently-deranged person can wreak havoc and ruin so many lives.

I am outraged, but I’ve been outraged before. What good does it do me or the country? I am outraged at those legislators who have pocketed NRA money. I am, in a fit of anger, outraged at anybody who voted these fools into office, which pretty much means any Republican voter. How can they? I want to cry out to the heavens. (I have one dear, dear relative and several friends who voted Republican; some will talk to me about it, but others will not).

I think of my grandchildren. One in college, one in high school, three in middle school, and two in elementary school. They are all vulnerable, though the worst threat so far to the college girl was a man sighted on campus with a sword. Slightly archaic but give me swords over guns any time. But it’s a bit scary to think of them heading to school every day.

I am tired of “We need our guns for self-protection,” and “We have to be able to hunt.” I used to be sympathetic to those arguments, but no more. We need to get rid of guns in the hands of private citizens. Sure, criminals will still get them but in dramatically smaller numbers, and we stand a good chance of keeping them out of the hands of the mentally ill. Look at the buy-back program in Australia or the effective gun control that’s been working in England for years. No, it’s not an impossibility. Internationally, we hold a lot of honors—like the most mass shootings, the most gun deaths.

I know we cannot blame the Trump administration for these shootings, since they started years before. But this administration just did relax controls so that now it is easier for the mentally ill to obtain weapons. I do blame Trump and him alone for setting the mood in this country where it’s okay to be angry, belligerent, hateful and spiteful, and to act on your anger.

I’d been thinking about Trump today before the shooting, and it occurred to me there’s so much about him to dislike, so many changes he has wrought that destroy our democracy, our country, and our way of life. But, unfortunately, they are mostly things that cause us to wring our hands and gnash our teeth. But two things stand out to me as treason, before the Mueller report is even in (which I expect to confirm collusion and more):

Trump has refused to enact the sanctions imposed on Russia by Congress for meddling in our elections (which they are apparently poised to do again, without any concern from the White House), and he has exposed our country to security risks in the guise of highly placed staff who apparently cannot get security clearances. I know nothing of Rob Porter (except that I despise him), but Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, has known, established ties to Russia and no security clearance. Does Donald Jr. have a clearance, he who said they get all their money from Russia these days? (45 should teach his sons to button their lips).

How long as a country do we allow a traitor to sit in the White House and undermine all that we hold dear? Please hurry, Mr. Mueller. And please, those of you who thought your vote didn’t matter, turn out in mass numbers this fall. My grandchildren are depending on you—and so are your children and grandchildren.

Oops, no blog, but I certainly did carry on.

Political confession coming up

I have too often been accused of being a fervent member of the Democratic party, and I am always taken back to my dad, who used to say he voted for the best man (not many women ran for office when I was a kid). The best man just always turned out to be a Democrat. I’ll admit that’s true for me too. I was raised in a household where FDR was a god, and Truman not too far behind him. My dad even cooperated with Richard Daley, Democratic mayor/boss in Chicago. I have rarely if ever voted for a Republican candidate.

But it goes beyond that. In the past if I thought a Republican was the best candidate, I would have voted that way. No longer true today. I am openly, honestly anti-Republican. People ask how I deal with Republican friends, and I must admit that I have few to none. The people I chose to spend my time with are those with values and concerns like mine—compassion for others, leading the list. I have a few Republican acquaintances that I like, and one brother that I adore who refuses to even enter an open discussion of politics with me. My suggestion that open discussion benefits everyone falls on deaf ears.

This hard-core stance has been strengthened, confirmed, whatever, by the Republican reaction to the Las Vegas massacre. This, they uniformly declare, is not the time to discuss gun control; it’s a time for mourning. Hogwash! If there ever was a time to discuss America’s disgraceful record of gun deaths, it’s now. We cannot avoid the uncomfortable statistics that America leads the world in gun deaths, and certainly is way out in front of developed countries. I have found fascinating and frightening statistics on Facebook and shared most of them.

One I particularly like is a long list of things that are regulated—women’s bodies, leads the way, but there are others—liquor sales, driving, school bake sales, home improvements, driving a car, owning and caring for a dog, cutting hair for a living. The list goes on with endless trivia—but guns are not on it.

The administration recently made it easier for people with mental health issues to buy guns—anyone remember Newton? And there’s a bill before the House now to legalize silencers. It includes a rider or whatever to permit bullets that can pierce body armor. Who is the wide world needs to pierce body armor? Who needs an assault rifle? The NRA and they own the Republicans, bought and paid for. Speaker Ryan, with great sensitivity, has tabled the bill, which simply means he’ll wait for the public furor over Las Vegas to die down and then introduce it.

The lack of compassion is evident in other matters: Republicans just let CHIP insurance for nine million children expire, yet the House has passed a strict—and probably unconstitutional law—covering abortions after 20 weeks. Just when a woman finds out her baby may have serious, life-threatening deformities. Ah yes, compassion. They care more about unborn children than those that are here, sick, starving, uneducated. They now want to re-establish CHIP (how many desperately ill children have died during this lapse) and extend help to children in Puerto Rico but they’ll salve their consciences by cutting Medicare—which isn’t theirs to cut.

The list goes on. I write to my senators, yes I do, but they are both hard-core Republicans and send me platitudes in response. In general, with few exceptions, I find Republicans to be dishonest, devious, greedy, self-serving, and lacking in compassion. They value dollars in their pocket over human life, even in the face of a tragedy that killed 59 and wounded well over 500.

Yes, I’m anti-Republican. And I will do everything in my power to defeat the party in upcoming elections. We as a country are caught in the grip of a party that thinks more of its donors than of its constituents. It’s way past time for a change.

We must not let the memory of Las Vegas die, as we did the outrage of Newton. Take as a slogan, "If not now, when?" and keep the anguish, the horror, the indignation alive. And above all, vote those sobs out of office.

Another Day of Infamy

By now, I doubt there’s an American who has not heard the news: 512 people shot, 58 killed, by a single gunman. We don’t know his motive, probably never will. It seems likely that he was severely emotionally or psychologically damaged, although his family seems unaware of any such history. His father was once on the FBI Most Wanted list—what, if anything, does that have to do with today’s horrific event?

On Facebook today, the mood of the country seemed resigned to “This is the kind of country we live in.” The only developed country that has such mass shootings—though never this large before—on a regular basis: we average two a month. And citizens feel we can do nothing to change it. I reject that thinking. We can and must change it.

Ten days after the shooting of school children in Newton, Connecticut, support for stricter gun control began to fade as the horror of that massacre faded from the public mind. We seem to have short memories for that which is unpleasant or uncomfortable. By ten days later, a CNN poll showed that 52% of Americans opposed stricter gun control.

Will that happen again? Americans right now are stunned horrified. There will undoubtedly be a call for stricter gun control. But will it last? It seems to me we face a choice: Do you want to take a knee with the NFL or do you want to shrug in resignation when a man shoots over 500 people. For me, today’s event dramatizes the choice in characters that faces our nation. While this massacre was not racially motivated, or so we assume, it demonstrates the unleashed violence of our culture, the violence that football players are peacefully protesting.

Change begins at the local level, with each one of us. Will you stand silently by and shrug or will you take a knee?

Texas Tower shootings 50th anniversary draws near

 I’m not sure what I intended to blog about tonight or if I was going to wing it, but I have just been transported out of my comfort zone by a mind-blowing article (Texas Monthly) about the life of a woman wounded in the UT Tower Shootings. Come August that will be 50 years ago, before Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, before we thought about mass shootings and came, regrettably, to accept them as inevitable. What is wrong with us that we’ve come to that distanced acceptance?

It was August 1, 1966 when Charles Whitman went up the UT Tower in Austin, well-armed, and began shooting randomly, with amazing range and accuracy. He killed sixteen and wounded thirty-two others. I was a newlywed, living in a concrete block shack on the back or a clinic parking lot while I attended TCU and my husband was a surgical resident at Fort Worth Osteopathic Hospital. I was home that morning, and I remember being mesmerized watching the TV. How could one person do such evil, so much killing?

The horror becomes all that more real when you read, as I did tonight, the lengthy article about Claire Wilson, who survived the shooting (barely) but lost her boyfriend and the eight-month fetus she was carrying. Her life has been one of unanswered questions, unfulfilled longing, an inability to stay in one place long. Two unsuccessful marriages. No biological children, but an adopted bi-racial son she adores who developed bipolar problems. She asks some “What if?” questions, and you can’t help but wonder—what if she and her boyfriend were five minutes later walking across the campus? What if their class had not let out early?

It’s a sad story, yes, but it’s also one of resilience and courage and faith. It’s hard to read without weeping, but read it for yourself: http://features.texasmonthly.com/editorial/the-reckoning/

To me, it’s a story that resonates in this day of guns everywhere. Obviously, I’m not a fan of guns. If people want to hunt, fine! But why in heaven’s name do Americans need to carry either open or concealed handguns. The old argument about protecting themselves doesn’t carry much weight with me. And guns in the home to protect against invasion?  Anybody read the statistics lately about how many people are killed by inept gun owners or foolish gun owners who leave loaded weapons with reach of toddlers? It absolutely makes no sense, and I am ashamed—and a bit frightened—to live in a state that has embraced open carry. Yay to my school (TCU) for forbidding guns on campus.

The issue speaks even more relevantly in this long, endless presidential campaign. Donald Trump has, as Joe Biden said, appealed to the darker side of humanity. We all know it’s there. We all know another Charles Whitman can spring up among us The idea of encouraging hate and anger, along with looser gun control, absolutely scares the you-know-what out of me.

I think to too many of us it all seems abstract. It won’t happen to us. If that’s your thought, read Claire Wilson’s story. Me? If I walk into a restaurant and there are people there with military-style weapons, I’m leaving. Or if I have ordered, I’m leaving my dinner.

I’m honestly not sure what has happened to America as a society, but it saddens and scares me.

President Obama and Gun Control

I was proud today to say that I have consistently supported President Obama throughout the seven years of his presidency. His speech on gun control justified that support. We saw a man who cares deeply about the outrageous gun deaths in this country, especially those of the children at Sandy Hook—no, I don’t think even calloused politicians can cry on demand, and yet he wiped away tears as he spoke of that massacre. He presented sensible plans—small steps—toward controlling guns in this country without taking them away from responsible citizens, and, no, it’s not the slippery slope. In spite of what so many have shrilled, he is not coming for everyone’s guns. But it is appalling that we are the only advanced nation with a gun death record so high. You are much more likely to be killed by your neighbor than an ISIS terrorist.

I got some ugly emails already: “Obama is a fraud,” “the only thing he’s compassionate about is the money he gets from the NRA.” The latter amused me—shoe on the wrong foot. Members of the Republican party get NRA funds, not the president. I did hear here and there today that longtime members are dropping out of the NRA. Frankly, from my point of view, I wish we’d follow Australia’s example—after one horrific mass shooting, they outlawed all guns. Haven’t had another mass shooting since, and that was in the ‘90s. I know however some people want to hunt, some farmers in Texas and probably elsewhere need guns to protect their crops and animals against wild hogs. There is however no reason for citizens to have military style weapons. Some people want to protect their families—I’m okay with that as long as they are responsible gun owners, but I don’t know how you separate the wheat from the chaff. How many children have you heard of who picked up a loaded gun carelessly left lying about and shot either themselves or a sibling?

A mass hysteria has swept this country. People are obsessed with their right to bear arms, and in the process they distort the 2^nd Amendment and the intent of the Founders who wrote it. What’s worse is that this hysteria has extended to a kind of “us vs. them” attitude, where people see the government as the big enemy. The Oregon self-styled militia is an extreme example of this kind of thinking.

Do you want to live in a hostile, armed society? I don’t. I keep hearing the President wondering aloud how this became such a partisan issue? Do I know what to do about it? Not a clue, although I thought the speech today was a good start. Do I sometimes want to abandon ship and move to Scotland? You bet!

Where is America going?

Today a local high school was on lockdown because a student fired a gun at a fight at an adjacent McDonald’s—apparently he fired in the air and no one was hurt. But two high school students are jailed tonight—the second for bringing an air gun on campus. This is the school my niece and nephew attended, across the street from Central Market, a store I frequent. And today in a blog a former minister of my church recalled the night we were all at a board meeting and heard continuing sirens—someone had killed several people at a local church. It doesn’t just happen in San Bernadino folks, it happens all around us.

I have thought from time to time that America is ripe for revolution. I don’t know what form it would take, and I didn’t want to dwell on it but I guess I always thought it would be the poor rising against the terribly unequal distribution of wealth in this country, probably with racial overtones since the poor tend to be minorities—or what is rapidly becoming the majority. Rich old white men are going to lose their grasp.

But now I think revolution is upon us. It doesn’t just come from Muslims—I’ve heard conflicting reports about whether the San Bernadino shooter was American-born or here on a visa. But it comes from our neighbors, from the angry high school student, from the alienated man who shot up a church in Fort Worth, from the disturbed (putting it mildly) young man who shot all those children at Sandy Hook. Violence is all around us, and I wonder how as a society we got to this point.

I think I go back to the inequity of life in this country. Yes, we alienated a lot of Middle Easterners with our senseless invasion of Iraq (I hope you all saw that Dick Cheney was honored today with a statue commemorating his bring an end to terrorism—irony reigns supreme!). And yes, we had no after-conquest plan for helping the people of Iraq, which allowed ISIS to flourish. But the shooters in this country are mostly native-born and Anglo. We can’t keep on blaming Muslims.

We can blame Congress for blocking the President’s efforts at gun control. And we can blame the NRA for the senseless argument that we’d be safer if more people had guns. Tell me, truly, if you had been in that center in California with a gun, how successful would you have been against two crazed people with automatic assault guns? In Texas, we can blame a legislature that approved open-carry, even on campuses. If high school students bring out guns for an off-grounds fight, what do you think will happen at a drunken college frat party? We have let guns become way too much a part of our culture.

So, really, those are my two thoughts—we have disenfranchised so many citizens, and we have let guns become commonplace. Don’t talk to me about the Second Amendment—it was written in far different times and calls for a well-regulated militia.

Yes, I’m afraid. Afraid for my children and grandchildren, friends and neighbors. I see my local grandson off to school every morning with a catch in my throat. And yes, I’m angry. In this season where peace and love should prevail, I fear they are not enough. What can we as a society do about it? I don’t know, but I haven’t heard much come out of Washington that makes sense. Paul Ryan says we can’t stop people on the no-fly list from owning guns because it would violate their civil rights. President Obama, in the face of his many off-the-wall critics, makes the most sense but he’s fighting a corrupt legislature.

God help us all!

 

Who said what? A discussion of gun control--or not

Last night I inadvertently stirred the pot on FB by posting that I was appalled that Alabama was going to license children to carry firearms. Seems I didn't know all the ramifications--there are stipulations, such as age and parental supervision, but the bill is not aimed at letting children under 18 run helter-skelter with guns. It's for those who engage in competitive shooting, skeet, hunting. Not sure if it even includes handguns.
Today I read that Iowa is going to license the vision impaired. Now I know blind sports are a fairly big thing--people play basketball using auditory clues for that which they can't see. So I don't know the full story on the Iowa bill either and will refrain from my usual rush to judgment.
But my point here is the controversy I caused last night was of great interest to me because of the various points of view and what I know abut some of the people who commented. One friend I value is a policeman's wife, and she is militantly defense about her right to carry and to train her children with firearms. For her it's purely a matter of self-defense whether it be against an intruder, kidnapper or terrorist. That to me is a whole 'nother dilemma and I won't go into it except to say that today I read that most of us, being moral persons, would be hesitant to pull the trigger...and would thereby end up in more danger. Apparently it's a documented syndrome with service people and law enforcement.
Then there's the gentleman who frequently brings me up short for misquoting, misinterpreting and not checking sources. He seems to always know which web link to post for the latest statistics--more automobile deaths than guns, declining death rate in spite of increased gun ownership, and that kind of thing. He does this in an almost detached tone, not taking sides but claiming he wants the true facts laid out to quell fanning the flames of panic and fear.
There's another man, an old friend, who I can almost always count on to take the opposite stand--he supports guns and the military, dislikes Obama, but he was remarkably quiet last night.
I confess that I come at this from an emotional viewpoint, horrified by kids who kill themselves or their playmates with guns carelessly left around, by the massacres of which we have too many, and by the bizarre reactions of the far right to such tragedies. Rick Perry called the Charleston shootings an "accident"--that kind of reaction makes me rant and rave. So does the suggestion that ministers should be armed. While they preach the teachings of Christ? I don't think so. A friend posted that when that day comes, hate will have won out over love.
I was joined by a couple other women who also approach gun control from an emotional point of view and by at least one man who is clearly opposed to more guns, saying we have to control them.
Pretty much all these people agree that we need stricter gun control laws to keep firearms out of the hands of convicted criminals, the mentally disturbed, etc. and perhaps we need more education so that people don't leave loaded guns near children--can you screen for stupid?
The whole gun issue is a conundrum and nobody knows the solution. To me, there are several possibilities to consider--ban handguns and let people keep their long rifles? Increase education? Shut down the fear-mongering, panic-inciting NRA (don't know that could be done legally but they used to be a helpful organization focusing on teaching responsible use of firearms--pray that they would go back to that!).
Me? I'm going to continue to be anti-gun. I generally think with my heart involved. I want love to win out.

Pistol packin' and open carry

This week's open-carry demonstration at the Texas State Capitol was pretty frightening, and one legislator deserves a shout-out for ordering armed protestors out of his office. I am really tired of this battle over who can or should carry a gun, and I am sick to death of the argument, "Read the Second Amendment." People! The second amendment, written in the time of muzzle-loading rifles, called for people to be armed as an orderly militia should the need arise. The framers of that document could not foresee a society where every third person wants to carry an AK-16 or whatever it is.
People crow about their individual rights--the "guv'mint" can't take those away. I believe it was John Stuart Mill who wrote that we are free to do as we please as long as our actions do not endanger the common good.
I'm not against guns, especially for hunting. If you want to keep a gun in your home for protection, God bless you. I hope you're among the few who are truly responsible. The statistics about home guns, children, and fatal accidents are truly appalling. I don't own a gun, wouldn't if I could. I'm not sure, even with training, that I could bring myself to shoot another person, unless to protect my children or grandchildren. Even then, my aim would probably be off because of nerves, and I'd only make a bad situation worse.
I do think it's mandatory that we have much better control over arms--no sales at gun shows or on the Internet, strict background checks that are enforced. It's not a cure-all, but those would be steps in the right direction.
But what disturbs me most is the attitude manifest by a gun-carrying society. If you feel so in danger you have to carry a weapon, concealed or otherwise, it indicates, to me, a hostile attitude toward your fellow man. An armed society is almost bound to be an angry society that cannot live in peace. An atmosphere of hate and distrust would prevail. Those open-carry protestors yesterday were angry, rude, frightening. Is that the kind of world we want to live in?
I am also disturbed that somehow there is a link between Christianity, at least fundamental Christianity, and the right to carry. It brings up that phrase so popular a few years ago: WWJD. Do you really think Jesus (or Mohammed) would walk around with a loaded assault rifle?
I promise not to respond to any hateful, angry comments on this subject. If you'd like to express an opinion with an open-minded, let's talk.