And the relevant issue is: GUNS.
I am reminded of a guy - I think his name was Eric - back at college who would have lunch with us from time to time. There would be several topics of conversation while we ate our "food". And "food" - specifically the food offered in the college dining hall - would be the number one topic. It was horrible. Little taste. Small quantities (probably a blessing in disguise). And... everything looked, well...kind of...green. (Didn't matter whether we were eating red meat, carrots, potatoes....it all looked...green.) True story - the food served for lunch was much tastier and satisfying than the food on the dinner menu!! One evening I was moved to throw my entire dinner out the window of the dining hall (as I recall, barely missing a group of unfortunate students who were arriving to sample the tasty delights prepared by the kitchen). My punishment? A three-day suspension from the services of the dining room...which under the circumstances could hardly be categorized as a punishment.
Anyway...there were other topics of conversation. Women heading the rest of the list (no surprise there). Additional subjects ran the gamut. Politics. Social issues. The Middle East. Vietnam. Crime.
Invariably Eric - not a friend, just an acquaintance I need to add - would provide his opinion after the rest of us were done. "Guns!" he'd say. "Guns!" We'd look at him closely. No hint of a smile. No joke. Not much subtext. No hesitation. "Guns!" he'd say. And then he would munch on a very green meatball hero.
Now young Eric was only eighteen or nineteen, we never were able to get to know him well. Never discovered what happened to him. Who knows what he was really trying to say? But the simplicity of his response is mirrored daily in the national "debate" over the issue of gun violence.
I will not reiterate in this space the arguments used by opponents of gun control. The harsh truth...whatever has been tried, hasn't worked. This has been going on a long time. School killings?
- 1927 Andrew Philip Kehoe killed 44 in Bath Township MI.
- 1966. Charles Joseph Witman killed 15 in Austin Texas.
- 1989 Patrick Edward Purdy killed 5 in Stockton CA.
- 1998 Kipland Philip Kinkel killed 4 in Springfiled OR
- 1998 Andrew Douglas Golden and Mitchell Scott Johnson killed 5 in Nickel Pines PA
- 1999 Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Kiebold killed 13 in Colmbine, CO.
- 2005 Jeffrey James Weise killed 9 in Red Lake MN.
- 2008 Steven Kazmierczak killed 5 in DeKalb IL.
- 2012 One L. Goh killed 7 in Oakland CA.
- 2012 Adam Peter Lanza killed 27 in Newtown CT.
Notice the trend here?
And we are not even talking about incidences of workplace violence. Or mass murders in a political, religious or racial context.
I remember 1968...when both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were gunned down by assassins. Just five years after JFK, I remember the public outcry. The urgent need to solve the problem. The political speeches. The meetings. The debates. More speeches. More debates....
I would argue that today we live in an even more stressful and challenging society. More drugs and the associated physiological ramifications (thanks, Boomers!) Continued erosion of the family and its negative effect upon behavior. Reduced respect for authority and the decline in levels of appropriate - and healthy - public behavior (we can thank the Boomers for that one as well). I can go on here. (I am sure hundreds if not thousands of books have thoroughly explored these topics.)
Guns? It's not working. The problem is getting worse. While generations of politicians and lobbyists and advocates...opponents and proponents...have come.. and have gone.
The time is now to take long-overdue constructive measures to alleviates problem. Tell your elected officials to...
Do The Right Thing...
Perhaps my old college acquaintance, Eric, was right. The answer is guns.
It's also the problem.
Bye for now, talk with you soon...be safe....
Stevenn
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