Gun laws, of course, but what else?

“We can’t tolerate this anymore.  These tragedies must end.  And to end them, we must change.”
- President Barack Obama, Sunday night, addressing participants at a prayer vigil for the 26 teachers and students, murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Friday

There is no snow on the mid-December ground in Newtown, Connecticut, to hide the furry ears of teddy bears, the bundles of flowers, the mounting piles of notes and photos, mourning the dead children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary, beneath a quiet pile of white. Instead, the cold ground, in the small New England town, under tears and rain, lays its sadness bare. The national empathy is loud and palpable, through sad news reports, police press conferences, brave family statements, and the president’s words of comfort to a community devastated over its loss of innocence, and innocents.

President Obama addresses prayer vigil in Newtown, Connecticut, Sunday, December 16, 2012.
(From Whitehouse.gov video)

“Are we really prepared,” President Obama asked, at Sunday’s vigil, “to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?  Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”
“I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens,” he promised, “in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.”
He said he would gather those who can help with the issue of mass killings at the hands of deranged minds, including parents, teachers and mental health professionals. But in this inexplicable tragedy, we are all stakeholders. We are all engaged. We are all responsible. We cannot only rely on whatever politically expedient solution the leaders of our country come up with, and call it done.
But what else do we do?
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This week we're all Sikhs, but after soul searching we're still gun loving Americans

"These kinds of terrible, tragic events are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul searching..." - President Barack Obama, in response to the mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Sunday, August 5, 2012

Thank you, President Obvious.

You know, I'm not clear on this. In the lexicon of political double-speak, is "soul searching" what happens after lip service, or before? Mass shootings, or their euphemistic cousin, domestic terrorism, should not be the opening to conversations about gun control. Common sense, and the fact that, according to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, someone in America dies from a firearm every 17 minutes, should rule policy.

Instead, the administration's response to the Aurora and Oak Creek shootings has been to call for cultural introspection, and to restate their support for the assault weapons ban, also known as the Brady Bill, that expired in 2004.

"He'll continue to instruct his administration to take action towards common-sense measures that protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens," presidential spokesman, Jay Carney, told reporters, in an election year type of response, at Monday's press briefing. Not wanting to piss off the dwindling number of "undecideds" Obama might need for reelection, Carney laid the blame for gun violence on Congress.

"There is no question that there has been a reluctance to act in Congress on these issues," he said. But what about the administration's milquetoast, politically safe reaction? Isn't that also a "reluctance to act?"

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Weeping for Thirty-three: America's Passionate Death Culture

America's Passionate Death Culture

Two Glocks........One Troubled Man.......Thirty-three Dead

The sad rains of a cold April morning chill the Virginia air with a soundless, icy weeping.

Yesterday, needless deaths in the heart of Appalachia numbed a town and a people who undeservingly find themselves in the dark abyss where fate has flung them. The echo from the pit into which a melting Blacksburg has fallen resounds with dying voices screaming, "Why?"

As a nation we cry with them, and tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week, we move on. Half- staff flags will be raised and, as the poet at today's service intoned, even the Hokies will prevail. Let's go Hokies.

But who will answer for the killed? Who will answer for the killer?
Let's go, Hokies.

The fat line of fire goes through Columbine, of course, and the horrors before and since, and stretches back to Austin in 1966.

One rifle....One troubled man...16 Dead

But is that where it started? According to a Washington Post article, historians mark the beginning of what they classify as "spree killing" at Wounded Knee, in 1890.

Four Hotchkiss guns...500 US troops...300 Lakota dead

That doesn't include other Indian massacres, or mob lynchings or KKK killings, all committed with the knowledge or support of local government authorities.

So many people killed. So many times an unconcerned society has turned away, and people who say they care about justice and rights sigh and disappear behind the glowing cloud of their TVs.

But it doesn't really matter when it started. What matters is, when will it end?

They found a receipt for a gun in Cho's backpack, perhaps the same bag where he put his laptop, pens, notebooks and iPod. What was it like, I wonder, for him to feel the butt of a pistol when he reached in to where his computer's mouse usually was? Wasn't that enough to stop him? What if he would have reached in for a gun and pulled out the mouse? Click. You're dead. Scroll to rotate the round. Click.

We kill what bothers us. Cockroaches, mosquitos, BlacksChineseMexicansArabsJewsArmeniansIrishCommiesCatholicsMormons. We don't want them around, so we kill them. You can kill anybody you want to, if your willing to face the consequences, if there are any. The NRA says the Constitution guarantees it.

And murderers. We kill them too. Life is cheap, at least, your life is, if you kill someone. And yes, it is hard not to be cynical when you're American and know that your neighbor or your classmate or your twelve-year-old could shoot you. Life is cheap.

Tell me I am wrong. Prove to me that life is valuable. What's that you say? People are life? We can't replace them? Yes, but we can always sell someone another gun.

-PBG

PS. The Peace Alliance is using this to show how important a Department of Peace would be to this country. Please visit them, if you don't know about them. Kucinich is a big supporter and Marianne Williamson is one of the principals.

PPS. For those of you who haven't seen it, John and Elizabeth Edwards sent a heartfelt letter regarding Monday's tragic events to their supporters. It's currently on the splash page of his website, but in case they take it down, here it is:

"We are simply heartbroken by the deaths and injuries suffered at Virginia Tech. We know what an unspeakable, life-changing moment this is for these families and how, in this moment, it is hard to feel anything but overwhelming grief, much less the love and support around you. But the love and support is there. We pray that these families, these students, and the entire Virginia Tech community know that they are being embraced by a nation. There is a Methodist hymn that gave us solace in such a moment as this, and we repeat its final verse here, in hopes it will help these families, as it helped us:

"In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing, in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

"Our dearest wish is that this day could start again, with the promise of these young people alive. Knowing that cannot be, our prayer is for God’s grace and whatever measure of peace can be reached on this terrible day.


John and Elizabeth Edwards"