Reagan Was Right

Yes, you heard me – Ronald Reagan was right…

“We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the law-breaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”
Ronald Reagan; July 31, 1968
 

At some point we either take actions that make sense and stop this carnage – or our actions are to continue to stick hour heads in the sand and pretend that wholesale and rapidly increasing ownership of handguns and so called “assault style” weapons, instruments with no purpose other than killing other people is OK.  Pretend that there is no connection to the gun violence inflicted in this country at a much higher rate than any other modern industrialized nation.
 
But here’s the thing.  YOU are responsible for your actions – one way or the other, YOU are also accountable.

And so in a week where a young Australian was shot in the back and killed because his murderers were bored, where tragedy was averted by a brave (unarmed) woman talking a heavily armed gunman who invaded an Atlanta school, now there is this.  A toddler was killed by his own grandfather claiming he was acting in self-defense (from the toddlers father, not the toddler – obviously).  Of course I am glossing over the 200 or so (based on average of 10,000 deaths a year) other lives that will be lost this week in this senseless and largely preventable carnage.

Another Needless Tragedy - Toddler killed by grandfather near Lilburn

The caption on this image from the Atlanta shool incident published by CNN read:
A child peers out the window of a school bus as the children are returned to their parents at a nearby shopping center Tuesday afternoon.
 

Thankfully this little girl and all the other teachers and children survived this incident.  But can their lives ever be the same?  Will their families lives ever be the same.  Perhaps for some, some sense of normalcy will return, but for some, perhaps many, I wonder...

Reagan also said:

“There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us.”

So if a child here or there, has to die as collateral damage while the “rest of us” maintain our so called "freedoms" (often also referred to as "rights", and unfathomably to me by some who profess the same faith I hold dear, "God given"), I think it is fair to say, there is no peace.  One thing for sure is that there is no justice.

Epilogue.

I’m sorry if you feel this is a theme that dominates what I've had to say lately.  I really would rather I was finishing up some other things I’ve been writing of late.  Probably half of what I write I never share publicly.  The writing itself is the catharsis I need.  I wrote a lot on this yesterday and that was enough, I was spent.  But these stories sadly  keep coming…

One thought as I sat on my deck last night enjoying the glow of the almost full moon was how lucky I am to live here with my peace and quiet, and then a conversation with someone on the shooting of the young Australian led me to realize I live in a fools paradise.  Columbine High School is less than three miles from my door.  And although in some ways it seems on the other side of the country, the site of the tragedy at the cinema in Aurora last year is just over twenty miles away.

 

A good day to stay inside

So I just learned that today (Jan 19) is National Gun Appreciation Day here in the USA.  Well that is nice – after all there is a lot to appreciate on that subject here in the US.  Now I know a lot of folk out rallying today for what they believe (I would suggest incorrectly) is an inalienable right are good law abiding people, the simple fact of the matter is, a lot of them will legally have a CCW (that’s Concealed Carry Weapon – I had to look it up to be certain) on their person.  

Now given the arguments by a lot of the extreme and even not so extreme gun lobby that if only someone in the theater here in Colorado had been armed, that tragedy would have been averted, the chances for a good old shoot out at the OK corral are much increased today.  On the theater tragedy I’ve expressed my opinion on how well that might have worked before – but for those who may not have heard my take – imagine now the bad guy and at least one (maybe more) people blazing away at each other in a dark, crowded, panic filled room.  Yes - crossfire – that likely could have been an even bigger tragedy.   Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, but sadly Dirty Harry and all the other good guys in the movies and on television are not real – chances are high they will NOT hit the bad guy with a single well aimed shot.

Now I have carried such a weapon once outside of a firing range – I was out hunting bear with a friend - using bow and arrow, so yes, there are some non-murder related purposes other than target shooting, but fundamentally, you (as a private citizen) own a CCW, i.e. a handgun for one reason and one reason only, to shoot and most likely kill another person.  Frankly, if you own it for any other reason, you really shouldn’t be carrying it in the first place.  A hand gun is not a threat for self-protection if you are not actually prepared to use it – more than likely, it will end up getting used on you if that is the case.  I will probably get misunderstood for this, and I am NOT suggesting this at all but simply making a point: if everybody who has rushed out to buy a handgun since Newtown was made to shoot a puppy to see what a handgun actually does and is 100% convinced they will do that to another person before completing the purchase, one wonders how many sales would go through…

Now I didn’t set out to write a long piece today so let’s stick with that.  The article I was reading led me to an interesting page which is shown on the image should you want to go there.  I can’t tell you for sure whether the Annenberg Public Policy Center is right or left leaning – or as some rare think tanks are, centrist, but I do like that they actually document the sources for what they claim are the facts so you can drill deeper should you choose.

The point I wanted to make was this:

Many I’ve had reasoned discussions with (and many more who simply spout off things they see other people post and have no idea) believe that the widespread elimination of gun ownership in Australia (and a few other countries) has been an abject failure.

I can’t speak as well to the other countries but I do know a little about Australia.  And I was a gun owner in that country, although not living there at the time the “gun ban” was instituted.  The facts are clear despite NRA and the like memes say that crime in general, crime with guns, murder rates overall and murder with guns involved have decreased steadily since the gun ban became effective in 1998.  If you want to check that out, I refer you to base data at the Australian Bureau of Statistics - I hope we can agree, a non-interested party and probably bout as unbiased as you could hope to get.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4510.0Main+Features12004?OpenDocument

(Past and Future Releases tab has all the data you could possibly want if you are so inclined)

A report sponsored by gun rights folk in Australia argues that these trends would have happened anyway.  I have not made a study to determine if that is true or not, but what I did learn is that following the tragedy of Port Arthur (1996) and the gun ban that becoming effective in 1998, there have been almost no mass shootings, whereas they had been quite prevalent in the ten or so years before Port Arthur. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_mass_murders)

So what would suggest we do know from this is that while it is not reasonable to pretend all the guns are gone in Australia, clearly significantly reducing gun ownership and placing very strict requirements on gun ownership (yes you can still own a gun in Australia) has made it a lot safer.  I’ve even had folk sure (because they have been told it is so) that non gun crime has increased in Australia.  In part, I assumed this was possibly correct as you were hearing a lot about the rise in home invasions and such as of course there was no longer any fear of an armed home owner.  Turns out that is not the case either.

In short, not having guns readily available makes it a lot harder to have these tragic mass murders.  It also seems to have a positive impact on crime in general.  But that is not a discussion many in this country are willing to even start having.  The answer according to the extreme gun lobby (and many people who probably are not really that extreme seem to be voting with their feet if gun and ammunition sales which are through the roof are any indicator) is MORE guns. 

What absolute nonsense.  Closing then by going back to the information above, because having reviewed the Aussie data a few weeks ago, these numbers really stood out.  The 2010 US gun murder rate is 3.6 (per 100,000 people).  The comparable figure for Australia in 0.2.  Yes, there probably is something to the lame excuse “why get rid of guns, people will just use something else”, as for sure the total Australian murder rate is 1.0 compared to the US total rate of 4.8 (or 20% of Australian murders involve guns compared to 75% in the US).  But let’s get real – yes you can kill one person with a knife, maybe even 2 or three, but twelve, or worse yet, over twenty at Newtown?

Now I know better than most that you can’t simply translate what was done in Australia or other places to the USA.  But what is so frustrating is the head in the sand attitude that says it won’t change anything, so why bother.  Which is tantamount to saying, we are OK if another shooting in a school or other public place resulted in the deaths of multiple children and teachers.  As an organization that wants my wife, a teacher, to carry a gun proudly says on its web site, NO COMPROMISE. 

an endless, deafening silence…

I don’t often go back and read what I’ve written but I felt compelled to go back and read this recent post.  What grieves me terribly is the events in Newtown compelled me to do so this soon.

[ref: Don't Let There Be Hole in the World Tomorrow ]

Did I want it to reassure me?  Did I want it to ease the disquiet in my soul? Was I hoping I had somewhere in my rambling jotted down an answer?

The truth is I don’t have an answer.  A friend of mine posted a podcast.  Phil is a pastor of a rather non-traditional faith community.  He didn’t have any answers either – just a lament.  I was glad to hear his heartfelt honesty.  I don't know why people are so convinced pastors and ministers in particular and we as a society in general needs to have an answer.  Maybe it would make it all easier to put it away in a little box and move on.  If only we knew why…  if only there was someone or something we could blame.  Do we think even the most perfect answer will make moving on possible for the people affected there in Newtown?

I grieve for them... I have no answers either, but my heart is broken with them.

I heard some of a press conference with the governor of Connecticut.  Amongst so many heart rending pieces of information and the grief poured out, one particular statement has really been gnawing away at me…

“Evil visited this community today” 

What do we do with that?  How do we prevent that?  Is it true that it is always there – latent – malevolent – waiting to be unleashed upon unsuspecting and undeserving people?  And whether it is there under the surface all the time – or just pops up at the most inopportune moments – where is God in all this?

Less than five months ago, one day after the tragic theater shootings in nearby Aurora I wrote:

Yes – yesterday there was a hole in the world.  Today is a new day – and while that does not mean something like this will never happen again (although I hope and pray that it does not), I will move forward in my life, believing that forgiveness and love has the capacity to overcome fear and evil.

Can I still believe this?  Is forgiveness and love enough?  Five months ago perhaps is was cathartic to write that – it almost seems trite now.  Perhaps it was easier to say last time writing a day after the tragedy – when my emotions were less raw.  It’s like these words were at best a Band-Aid that has been ripped away. 

The Band-Aid gets ripped away again when I read what to me is unconscionable nonsense from recent presidential primary candidate Mike Huckabee – suggesting that the violence was no surprise because we have "systematically removed God" from public schools.  Seriously?  What is he saying – that God repays evil (at least Huckabee’s vision of evil) with evil?  Again in the words of my friend Jimmy, “If you think God allowed 20 children to die because some folks turned their back on him I don't know what to say to that... I choose not to believe God is that petty?  If he is we are ALL in trouble.”   Me personally – I don’t think we are in trouble – God’s heart broke over this much faster than any of ours.

The Band-Aid gets ripped away again when I hear people advocating for our teachers to carry handguns and be trained to use them.  Again – seriously?  My wife is a teacher and I asked her.  She didn’t think you could convince many teachers to do it.  But even if you could – is this an answer?  It seems over and over to be one of the preferred answers here – answer violence with violence.  Personally I find the notion of armed teachers horrific - and we would be outraged soon enough over the shooting of a child by a teacher that turned out to be unjustified - even more so than we are when this happens at the hands of our armed law enforcement.

The Band-Aid get ripped away again when I hear nonsense like “guns don’t kill people – bad people with guns kill people”, or “we have all the laws we need to prevent this – we just need to enforce them”, or directly attributable to a leader of the NRA “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” (Wayne LaPierre).  I’m sorry; I grew up on a farm.  I’m not opposed to guns.  I get the need as we had in Australia for control of animals threatening your livestock.  I get the utility as we did in Australia of using them to hunt for food.  I never contemplated and can think of no plausible reason why handguns or assault style weapons are needed for either of these purposes, both of which I consider legitimate.

But the truth remains - I still don’t have an answer.  Yesterday at least for me was not the day for answers.  I don’t know how to overcome evil, but I think a part of me will continue to hold out for forgiveness and love as a strong undercurrent.  Some of the most significant and transformative social change we have seen in this last hundred years came through adoption of largely nonviolent approaches.  

But we do need answers soon.  Tomorrow there will still be a hole in the world for many.  Tomorrow more than today, there will be for some as my friend Brandon wrote, “an endless deafening silence”.  Love and forgiveness will help – but we cannot just put this behind us and forge on stoically.  We can’t just say this is not us – because while there is unquestionably far more good than evil, the father of a student murdered in a school shooting 20 years ago makes an challenging statement which I think of more as a proposition:

“I came to realize that, in essence, this is the way we in America want things to be.”

The horror of this proposition is of course unacceptable today of all days, and yet are we willing to really go deep into darkest places of our souls and answer this.  Fundamentally I would say the answer to that proposition is no – this is NOT the way we want things to be, but then the challenge remains - what are we willing to do to change it?

I don’t have the answers for how this evil came among us, the nature of evil or how evil generally comes about.  Edmund Burke has been quoted perhaps uncountable times for saying:

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

The obvious extension of this is saying nothing is the same as doing nothing.   If the endless deafening silence is not only that in the homes of the victims in Newtown, then the blame for the next tragedy like this falls at our feet.

Don’t Let There be a Hole in the World Tomorrow

It’s a new day in Colorado.  

Yesterday was in many ways a crummy day – which is not meant to be an understatement, but it was one of those handful of days in my mind where the disquiet in my soul was just something I couldn’t easily find a way out of.  But even a day such as yesterday where I was jolted into the early morning with the endless media coverage of the terrible massacre at the movie theater in nearby Aurora in place of the morning news and weather there were some great things in my life.  Dinner with my younger daughter at the restaurant my oldest was working, and then picking up the older one after what was her last shift before heading off to college and going for dessert were not only enjoyable as normal, they were pleasurable diversions from reality. 

It’s a new day in Colorado.  

But what is that reality?  I have received a number of messages from friends as it appears are many others who live here in Colorado.  I will no doubt hear all about it from my father later tonight when I call home to Australia.  How can we choose to live here with all this pointless violence seemingly endlessly going on?  Another expat friend of mine (from Europe) was talking to me yesterday and fielding these same questions from home, to which he had replied, “it can happen anywhere – even in supposedly safe places like Norway”.  I’m glad in a way it didn’t cross my mind not to go about the normal sorts of things we do as a family last night, but I completely understand that for some people, that was not possible.  It did not really occur to me at all in some ways that what was “normal” had been disturbed until as we were driving home from dessert and past a theater, there were several police cars parked outside.  Then the reality hits – just as it did after 9/11 for example – the world is not the same… Certainly not here in Colorado and probably not in many other places either.

It’s a new day in Colorado.  

So what of today… This morning as usual, I was the first up and pottering about the house.  In time, my girls roused themselves and surprisingly at the appointed time, we left to grab breakfast at one of our favorite haunts.  Then they set off into town – on their own.  I thought about that driving home from the restaurant – life goes on – life needs to go on.  In three weeks my oldest will leave home for college – life goes on.  And yet the doubts can get to you.  Yesterday got to me.  In theory I suppose, my faith should shield me from that.  I’m OK that it does not completely – I’m also grateful that it helps tremendously.  It is odd nonetheless that my oldest has set off on her own (without her parents – obviously not completely on her own) to places like South East Asia, Haiti and most recently, the Dominican Republic and I am completely at peace with that.  But the next time she goes to the midnight premiere of a movie, I will probably have some discomfort.  Life was not always comfortable before yesterday.  Life will go on…

It’s a new day in Colorado.  

Just over a year ago, we as a family, along with some close friends experienced a riot.  We were in Vancouver – another safe place – trust me – if you’ve never been to Canada – its safe – they are sooooo nice!  I go there a lot and it’s nice – I take my family and friends – and what do you know – a hockey game ends badly for the home team and a riot breaks out.  OK, it wasn’t just any hockey game, it was the deciding game 7 of the Stanley cup finals – not convinced – never mind – it is a big deal in Canada.  But the point of all that is not so much the riot, but the amazing outpouring of sadness mixed with hope in the city the next day.  There was a spirit in that outpouring that said “this was not us” and I think that is where we are today in Colorado.  I am glad my children saw the response the day after. 

It’s a new day in Colorado.  

The lives of the families and friends of the 12 people who have tragically lost their lives are forever altered by the events of last night.  The lives of the families and friends of over 50 or so others who were wounded, several of whom are in critical condition are probably in some way, forever altered by the events of last night.  Similarly, the terror for many others, even if they were physically unharmed, some perhaps who were not even in the theater will for a long time, maybe even forever, alter their lives.  And I suspect that no matter what they have seen, the responders on the scene and the trauma staff in the hospitals are affected.  One of my few other life jolting days was the first (and thankfully only) time I was a first responder at an accident which resulted in a fatality – I can’t begin to imagine what it is like on a scene like that.  I have no words for these people, no explanations either, but the events that transpired yesterday in Colorado are not the norm at all.  We will not have boards to write our response to this tragedy on, but I do hope to attend a gathering somewhere today or tomorrow and along with sharing in the sorrow of those who have lost so much, stand in solidarity with other in declaring in one voice, “this is not us”!  

It’s a new day in Colorado.  

Yesterday in the Denver area alone (based on recent statistical averages), close to 200 children were born.  It follows that today; another 200 odd followed them into the world, and tomorrow there will be more.  We have a choice about the world they come into, the world they will grow up in.  The title of this blog is from a recent Eagles song, penned as I understand in response to 9/11 and while the band were delayed recording an album due to that tragedy.  This song rattled around in my head yesterday – I suppose I was not unique in that.  I hope the web-link lasts (one never knows with these things on the internet) as Don Henley actually talks a little about the events leading up to it.  But if not, then I’ve included the lyrics below.  Yes – yesterday there was a hole in the world.  Today is a new day – and while that does not mean something like this will never happen again (although I hope and pray that it does not), I will move forward in my life, believing that forgiveness and love has the capacity to overcome fear and evil.

Concerning that, I guess it is oddly coincidental that I shared the following quotes from acquaintances I’ve connected with over the past year or so with another friend on Thursday - they remain true today - and perhaps have a stronger hold on me...

“God does have a way of combating evil. It’s not punishment and it’s not retaliation, fear or anger. It’s forgiveness. Forgiveness is God’s way of combating evil” - Nadia Bolz-Weber

“Love doesn't need to win because it is not competing with hate. It already won at Calvary. We are here to simply let the world know that.” - Jeremy Ritch

In Vancouver, they now have a museum type exhibit with some of the boards saved after the shop windows were replaced so people will remember, and perhaps choose to act better in the future.  What we will remember will largely be in our hearts – but it will be even more important in choosing how we live tomorrow.

Hole in the World

 

There's a hole in the world tonight.

There's a Cloud of fear and sorrow.

There's a hole in the world tonight.

Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

They say that anger is just love disappointed.

They say that love is just a state of mind,

But all this fighting over who will be anointed.

Oh how can people be so blind.

There's a hole in the world tonight.

There's a Cloud of fear and sorrow.

There's a hole in the world tonight.

Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

Oh they tell me there's a place over yonder,

Cool water running through the burning sand,

Until we learn to love one another

We will never reach the promise land.

There's a hole in the world tonight.

There's a Cloud of fear and sorrow.

There's a hole in the world tonight.

Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

Don Henley and Glenn Frey