In America, 2022, Every Day Is Memorial Day
The Latest School Shooting Tragedy Moved Congress To Go On Holiday, Not To Take Definitive Action To Stop Gun Violence
Another week in America, and another mass shooting.
The facts are almost impossible to believe.
The fact that mere days can pass between two horrific mass shooting events in America.
The fact that there is no safety in America in public places.
The fact that mentally disturbed individuals can access weapons to kill more easily than they can access healthcare or mental health counseling.
The fact that trauma, grief, and carnage can barely be processed before another tragic event occurs.
The fact that the destruction American weapons and gun manufacturers export to the far corners of the world is coming back to visit within our borders.
It’s taking out good people and destroying families.
It’s a permanent war zone in America.
If nothing else comes to light, it should be apparent that gun violence, and the victims and trauma it leaves behind, have far-reaching effects beyond the immediate tragedy.
Joe Garcia, the husband of Irma Garcia, one of two elementary school teachers killed in the most recent shooting in Uvalde, Texas, died within hours of his wife from a heart attack. The grief and loss were so intense that he literally died, it was said, of a broken heart. The four surviving Garcia children will have to, somehow, cope with the loss of both parents.
Go Fund Me donations to the family have been generous. Economic support is critical, but it won’t solve the larger problem of the continuation of decades of gun violence. It certainly won’t ease a lifetime of trauma for these children.
The frustration people feel is deep. It’s like a horrible Deja Vu repeated yet again, standing in front of a tidal wave and screaming that you’ve had enough while it engulfs the ground you stand on. That tidal wave is the power and sway that the gun lobby has over a self-interested, cynical, Congress and Executive Branch.
I have to admit, I was so struck with profound sadness and shock upon hearing about Joe Garcia, his wife, and those students trapped in the classroom, that I can barely think of anything else. Maybe my first moment in multiple tragedies of this nature thinking “this time it will be different”.
Because it HAS to be.
Surely, Congress and The President will do something substantial. The scales have permanently tipped. SURELY they realize that the public will expect unity and won’t tolerate anything but decisive action, and that all the typical symbolism and platitudes, and thoughts and prayers, are not going to be tolerated as “solutions”.
I couldn’t have been more mistaken.
Gun culture isn’t just something that randomly coalesced out of the ether. It’s been around for decades. Like war culture, it’s propagandized and purposely promoted.
I honestly don’t know if this is unique to the 1950s and 1960s, but children, myself included, were inundated at a very young age with the idea that guns, in the form of toys, are fun and harmless. The behavior of a policeman, gangster, soldier, or “spy” is emulated in children’s play without consequence. The role-playing of being a “good” person and a “bad” person is mindlessly exchanged. You get the experience of a violent encounter without the real-life effects. There is purposeful disconnection. It all seemed harmless at the time. The ads, and manufactured toy weapons, continued, even when a US President was assassinated by gun in broad daylight. It’s only a “toy” right?
The NRA, in the adult sphere, has probably done more harm with its disinformation, and powerful lobbying arm, than any individual gun manufacturer, could. The NRA has been proselytizing for decades that guns, and gun ownership, are the foundation of “freedom”. The more guns one has, the better, so the average citizen can be ever vigilant to fend off an attack from ill-defined, yet threatening outside forces that want to take that “freedom” away. What could be worse, they say, than being enslaved to the tyranny of a gun-free society?
Is there any more ludicrous example of this propaganda than the aging Charlton Heston bringing the melodrama of his acting career to an NRA convention speech 22 years ago? The takeaway is that the conservative, pious, Republican Heston would rather die, rifle in hand than give it up to a Democrat. It would be laughable if it wasn’t a cynical, poisonous attitude that permeates society to this day. Heston must have known that the guns “Al Gore” wanted to “pry” from his “cold dead hands” weren’t antique hunting rifles, but automatic weapons that were killing children.
The domain of the NRA, unfortunately, is guarded zealously by the recipients of its largesse, who happen to be, coincidentally or not, powerful Republicans in Congress. According to the watchdog group Public Citizen, millions in campaign cash have, and will likely continue to flow to their campaign coffers.
Republicans are actively blocking legislation that was proposed in the Senate by Democratic Senator Schumer, and it’s clear that ANY restriction on the movement and final sale of dangerous weapons is a no-go with Republicans.
The gutless and hypocritical Senator Lindsey Graham, who seems to have a boundless affinity for war as long as your tax dollars are funding it, (and as long as your children or proxy soldiers are fighting it) said:
“There is no appetite for federal red-flag law or a so-called yellow flag law — which permits temporary firearm confiscation from people in danger of hurting themselves or others, if a medical practitioner signs off. There could be interest in providing money to the states that already have red flag laws or that want to develop them”.
What he means is there is no personal “appetite” in his personal sphere, or that of the GOP in Congress, to stop dangerous people from acquiring dangerous weapons.
He is recommending that the responsibility be tossed to the states, a way of pretending that something to stop further tragedy is being accomplished, but in practical terms does nothing. That way, critical campaign cash from the gun lobby continues to flow as the 2022 midterm elections approach.
Perhaps one of the strangest, and most horrifying aspects of the story, is the police action on the ground that day. It has been reported that police encountered the shooter, and for some inexplicable reason, chose not to confront him and permitted him to enter the building. This, after he apparently left his vehicle in a ditch on, or adjacent to, school property, In any other instance, this should have sent alarm bells ringing off the hook.
In addition, terrified parents, who lived nearby, desperate to save their children trapped inside, were literally blocked by force from doing so. Whether these actions by the police actually contributed to the tragedy seems to be a matter that is still under investigation and review. It’s obvious that the delays in action catalyzed a dangerous situation and made it worse.
In the wake of the tragedy, the social media tweet team for Joe Biden wasted no time in telling the American citizenry that he and his wife would be repeating their actions of days before and traveling to yet another city to grieve with yet another community impacted by gun violence.
Unfortunately what seems to be happening here is typical of the inaction of the past 20-plus years of gun violence. The Democrats introduce legislation that may or may not have “teeth” in actually curbing the sale of dangerous weapons in the form of combatting “domestic terrorism”. The Democrats need a supermajority vote of 60 Senators who are willing to throw aside the arcane tradition of the filibuster to take a vote. They hit a brick wall. Republicans scoff, turn their backs, and walk away, flat out refusing to vote on, or even consider, any new gun legislation. They pretend it’s about practical considerations and the “rights of the individual”. The Democrats excuse themselves from rectifying this horror over formalities and legislative procedure. The fingers of blame are pointed and the fault is apportioned to the other side. Nothing is accomplished until the next shooting, and the cycle starts all over again.
It should be noted that a party that just voted to send 40 billion dollars to fund Neo Nazis in Ukraine doesn’t really have any moral platform in this argument. The Democrats have moved rightward, and are on a steady march to join their Republican colleagues in a “spirit of bipartisanship”. It’s completely relevant to the discussion of limiting the sale of certain types of weapons to certain individuals in the US to ask a question: Do the unflinching support of weapons sale and distribution by the Democrats to Ukraine affect their ability to stop the flow of dangerous weapons domestically?
The layers of complexity in solving domestic societal problems are complex enough without adding in random gun violence. Is there anyone out there with any depth of spiritual and moral character and empathy that can stop it all?
I don’t think I can take one more memorial service, prayer, or thought.
