POLITICS
America Has a Target on Her Back
We’re throwing away our shot at real reform
My nephew marked himself “safe” on Facebook last month after a casino complex shooting near Green Bay, Wisconsin, when a lone assailant killed two and injured one. Bobby was there for a birthday party.
Just last Sunday, a former student checked in on Facebook in the wake of a shooting in Austin, Texas. Elizabeth was out on the town in Austin’s 6th Street entertainment district when shots rang out at about 1:30 a.m. One died; 13 sustained injuries.
As we marked the fifth anniversary of the horrific Pulse Night Club massacre — 49 dead, 53 wounded in Orlando — last weekend, our nation’s total dead in mass shootings approached 300 for the first half of 2021.
Atlanta, Boulder, Chicago, Savannah, Detroit, Indianapolis, Green Bay, Austin. As more cities join the national bloodbath, true gun reform seems farther and farther from our reach.
Congress, per usual, is split on this issue. As the body count rises, the House has passed two bills addressing background checks. But every time a lunatic pulls the trigger, Senators who oppose common-sense reform prefer to invoke “thoughts and prayers” instead of action.
Moscow Mitch might not be majority leader anymore, but he holds his comrades’ cojones firmly in his wrinkled, turtle-like clutches.
And then there are the politicians who should know better.
“Maybe we need to put more faith in religion and God back in the schools,” said Rep. Steve Scalise, the third-ranking House Republican, in the wake of a 2018 school shooting near Houston in which eight students and two teachers died.
Scalise says he wants “to teach the kind of values so where you won’t want to just go and kill your own classmates.”
The Louisiana politician — you may remember — is the man who almost died when a gunman took aim at Scalise and his teammates, who were practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game in 2017.
To coin a well-worn but often useful phrase, you can’t make these things up.
Scalise demonstrates another kind of crazy. His experience at the other end of a semi-automatic rifle — wielded by a left-wing nut job who also employed a 9mm handgun when he ambushed the team — should have informed him about the dangers of arming Americans to the teeth.
Instead, this sad excuse for a lawmaker has dug in on a weird, misguided defense of the Second Amendment.
The “idea that you should have a registry, that you should be able to prevent someone you don’t like from buying a gun at all, unless you’re illegal, that’s what they passed today,” Scalise told Faux News after the House took action a couple of months ago on gun registration. “That’s not where America is. We believe in our Second Amendment; we’re going to fight to preserve the Second Amendment rights.”
Don’t believe me? The Louisiana rethuglican promoted his remarks to GQP harpy shrew Laura Ingraham on his website in March.
I guess, Congressman, you’re endorsing the rights of a loner who methodically stalked you and your friends, leaving you with a shattered femur, extensive hip and pelvis damage and devastating organ injuries.
Are you freakin’ serious, Mr. Scalise? You, sir, still haven’t recovered from that man’s “right” to bear arms. But you keep up the good fight, hear?
My nephew called me the day after the Green Bay shooting. He checks in occasionally with Aunt Brooke, who’s always around with a willing ear and an open heart.
“It was just so surreal,” Bobby said of the initial rumors, then the panic, then the lockdown, then the evacuation of the place where he and his wife had been enjoying dinner with close friends. “We could hear the cops sweeping the place. We heard them engage the shooter in the parking garage.”
The best thing about the experience, according to my nephew? “I’m beyond thankful the kids weren’t there.”
Unfortunately, terror doesn’t care who shows up when it comes calling with its hate and its gruesome consequences.
I’m thankful, too, that no one I know has perished, in this recent violence, anyway — yet. I do know, however, what it’s like to lose a loved one to gun violence.
The politicians keep wringing their hands as more Americans die.
But when will all the madness end?