I read about the French survivors of the "most recent" terrorist attacks, I hesitate to say last as it implies final and when you read about the disengaged angry men that seem to bond over destruction, no annihilation. I have to say that it is something you wonder what happened in life that led them to make this decision to wage that level of war on citizens. War begins with one shot, one bullet and one gun. That is not an army that is a man who can say he is of an army but he is still an army of one.
As it always goes back to guns. And this editorial I think poses the same questions I have made repeatedly as the bodies that are just the collateral damage to that anger, regardless of the reason, the intent is the same - death.
The Children Left Behind After Mass Shootings
Since
no amount of dead bodies seems enough to spur lawmakers to rein in
access to guns, let’s focus on the living — the children gun violence
leaves behind.
Start with the little boy and girl belonging to Jennifer Markovsky, a 35-year-old mother who was one of three people murdered last Friday during the latest mass shooting of 2015 — this time, a lone gunman’s hourslong siege
of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. For the crime of
accompanying her friend to an appointment at the clinic, Ms. Markovsky
lost her life in the most brutal and pointless, yet entirely American,
manner.
Here’s
a thought for lawmakers who refuse to consider any meaningful
legislation to reduce the daily carnage of gun violence across America:
Thanks to your single-minded defense of unfettered gun rights at the
expense of all reason and respect for life, there is an endless supply
of children to be consoled. The other two victims of Friday’s assault — Garrett Swasey, a police officer, and Ke’Arre Stewart, an Iraq war veteran — also each had two children.
Of
course, children aren’t the only ones who endure this unnecessary
suffering. So do parents and grandparents. Grandchildren and nieces and
nephews. Husbands and wives and brothers and aunts. Lifelong friends and
beloved colleagues. Every life unique and irreplaceable, yet all
equally defenseless in the face of a bullet.
But
rather than taking action to address the full measure of destruction
America’s gun violence inflicts, many politicians appear more
comfortable offering rote words of shallow sympathy to the victims’
families, then jumping quickly behind distractions like the state of
mental-health care in America. Was Robert L. Dear Jr., the suspect in last week’s shooting, mentally ill? Did he oppose abortion? Or was he just extremely angry?
The
truth is, the characteristics of killers may vary, but the result is
always the same — a massacre of the innocent, made possible by virtually
unimpeded access to guns. Mr. Dear had several run-ins with the law and
still had plenty of weapons at hand.
Many who oppose sensible gun-safety measures point to the 350 million or so guns
already in circulation and say it’s too late to turn back now. Their
chilling solution is for everyone to be armed, and ready to shoot, at
all times.
Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado was right to call mass shootings “a form of terrorism.” Even as politicians and those in Congress pump up public fears at the supposed threat of refugees fleeing Syria, every day in America people — mostly white men
— are walking into movie theaters, restaurants, churches, grade schools
and health care centers armed to the teeth, determined to take as many
people out as they can.
This is not an intractable problem. Countries from Australia to Britain have dealt with mass shootings quickly and effectively with better laws. As a result, more of their residents are alive today, and none of those laws have created the tyrannies that fuel the paranoid fantasies of some activists.
Even
in America, where the Second Amendment provides robust protection of
gun rights, there are reforms that modestly brave politicians could pass
if they wanted to, including universal background checks; expanding the
categories of people deemed too dangerous to have guns; funding
research into gun violence; and gun buyback programs.
Instead,
the rhetoric on this issue swerves between the irrational and the
deranged. Consider a recent sampling from the leading Republican
presidential candidates. Ben Carson said,
“I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than
taking the right to arm ourselves away.” Donald Trump, who once
supported expanding background checks, said
the murders in the terrorist attacks in Paris were connected to
France’s strict gun controls.
Senator Ted Cruz suggested Mr. Dear could
be a “transgendered leftist activist.” Days earlier he proudly announced the endorsement of Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, who has advocated the execution of doctors who perform abortions.
Meanwhile,
the killings go on. More than once a day on average this year, mass
shootings have destroyed lives and families. President Obama on Saturday
said this endless ritual of murder is “not normal,” but that is precisely the problem: In America, it has become all too normal.
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