I miss you Sam!!

I miss you Sam!!
I miss you Sam!!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

A Sad Statement for America

Less than a week after I posted that I would be focusing primarily on the beautiful things in life, an article by Bob Herbert, Op-Columnist for the NYT, hit me right between the eyes. There's no way that I could read it, shrug my shoulders and go back to taking photos.

Ten days ago three police officers were killed by a 22 year old gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and armed with a variety of weapoons, including an AK-47 assault rifle. They were responding to a disturbance at the house. The young man's grandmother told Herbert there was no mercy for what her grandson had done. But as Herbert says, mercy or not, there is no end to the trauma and heartbreak caused by these horrifying, blood-drenched eruptions of gun violence, which are as common to the American scene as changes in the weather.

On the same day that shooting took place, a man here in Washington, shot his five children to death and then killed himself. A day earlier, a man in New York, invaded a civic association and shot 17 people, thirteen of them, fatally and then he killed himself. Three days after the shootings in Pittsburgh and Graham, Washington, a man with a handgun in Alabama murdered his wife, their 16-year-old daughter, his sister and his sister's son, before killing himself. And there's more, there's always more.

After all, this is the American way. Since Sept. 11, 2001, when the country's attention understandably turned to terrorism, nearly 120,000 Americans have been killed in non-terror homicides, most of them committed with guns. Think about it -- 120,000 dead! That's nearly 25 times times the number of Americans killed Iraq and Afghanistan!

And for the most part, we pay no real attention to this relentless carnage. The idea of doing something meaningful about the insane number of guns in circulation is a nonstarter. So what if eight kids are shot to death every day in America. So what if someone is killed by a gun every 17 minutes!

The goal of the National Rifle Association and a host of so-called conservative lawmakers is to get ever more guns into th hands of ever more people. Needless to say, Texas is one of a number of states considering bills to allow concealed guns on college campuses. Of course, supporters argue, among other things, that it will enable students and professors to defend themselves against mass murderers, like the deranged gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech two years ago. These gun supporters would like guns to be as ubiquitous as laptops or cellphones. One Texas lawmaker referred to unarmed people on campuses as "sitting ducks."

This murderous gunfire claims many more victims than those who are actually felled by the bullets. But all the expressions of horror at the violence and pity for the dead and those who loved them ring hollow in a society that is neither mature nor civilized enough to do anything about it.

How many more have to be killed before we find a better way to deal with violence in this country other than making it even easier for more angry, mentally/emotionally disturbed and just plain stupid people to get guns?

15 comments:

Michael Horvath said...

Working in the psychiatric field I see more and more budgets cut from programs needed to helpm those people with mental illness as well as other problems. It is sad.

Great Grandma Lin said...

it is sad what is happening. I wouldn't want to be one of the armed ones...

Deborah Godin said...

It makes completely absolutely and utterly no sense to me! One of the shootings that disturbed me most was the fellow who shot and killed burglers he saw leaving his neighbor's house. He was heralded as a champion, but all I could think about was how many times I'd left things for a neighbor to come and pick up when I wasn't going to be home, leaving things in the garage or between the doors. The thought of some gun-wielding neighbor thinking he was doing me a favor by killing them send chills down my spine!

Anonymous said...

this is shocking !

I never knew about these things !

I thought problems were only there in countries like ours !

EG CameraGirl said...

People who think MORE guns will solve the problem do not think logically. I do not understand where their ideas come from.

Deranged people need psychiatric help...not guns.

Biju Mathews said...

Shocking!!

SandyCarlson said...

Sylvia,
Thanks for posting this. It's sad and horrible because it doesn't have to happen. Guns are for killing, plain and simple. People who want to carry them want the power of life and death over others. It's sick and sad and wholly unnecessary.

Elizabeth said...

Dear Sylvia
you are so right about the horror and sadness easy access to guns brings about.
I used to get quite wild with fury at Bush and his wretched 'terror, terror, terror". (We live a mile from Ground Zero!).......yes 9/11 was utterly awful but Bush managed to avoid addressing the on-going carnage within America.
guns+ mental illness= disaster
A thought provoking post.
ps I come from England where there are fewer guns, not none, just not so many.

K. said...

Tragically, we are cursed with a gun culture. What gets me is that the same people who blather about a "culture of life" when it comes to freedom of choice are the same one who will give up their gun only when it is pried from their cold dead fingers.

bobbie said...

Thank you for posting this, Sylvia. The NRA lobbyists are so loud and strong in D.C., and our "representatives" are either so afraid of them or else going hand in hand with them, it seems almost impossible to overcome. But we MUST keep trying. What does it take to convince the majority of us that it is NOT a good thing to allow every citizen to arm himself?

Bagman and Butler said...

Today, driving home, I saw a scary bumper sticker that said: "Warning, I am clinging on to my religion and my gun." Sounds like an oxymoron to me, with emphasis on the moron.

pink dogwood said...

I never knew these numbers. 120000 since 9/11 - I am shocked.

Unknown said...

This breaks my heart. So poignant. Well written!

Rose said...

Amen! All too often we read the news stories, shake our heads, and then forget about it. Here in my part of Illinois, it finally hit home when the gunman who went on a rampage on the campus of Northern Illinois University turned out to be a local student. I do not understand, either, how the NRA can have such a powerful influence.

Lew said...

We tend to get angry only when something is widely publicized or directly impacts us. The majority of the gun deaths are suicides with murder a close second. Accidental deaths by guns are a small part of the total. I suspect the same is true for highway deaths - the majority of the deaths are caused by people knowingly driving badly (drunk, speeding, etc.) and the number of truly accidental deaths is small.

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I'm interested in almost everything. Use to like to travel, but it's too expensive now. I take Tai Chi classes, swim, volunteer in a Jump-start program for pre-schoolers. I'm an avid reader and like nearly everyone these days I follow politics avidly. I'm a former teacher and Special Projects Coordinator for a Telecommunications company, Assistant to the President of a Japanese silicon wafer manufacturing company. Am now enjoying retirement -- most of the time. I have two daughters, one son-in-law and two sons scattered all over the country. No grandchildren.

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