United in Perpetual Mourning

Although Americans are startlingly divided along partisan political divides, we're increasingly united in grief. It seems we're united in compassion for victims of violence, while skirting around the circumstances that causes our perpetual state of national mourning, brought on by preventable incidents of death and destruction. 

Although terrorism, like what happened in Boston, is difficult to predict, the incident's subsequent events might have been  prevented if the perpetrators didn't have guns.

Our ability to be professional national mourners even makes headlines.  "The Hill" reports:  "Congressional Republicans this weekend took a break from their attacks on President Obama to mourn the casualties suffered in the Boston Marathon bombings and vow swift justice for those who would harm Americans." 

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/295121-gop-drops-politics-vows-solidarity-after-boston-bombings#ixzz2R00qWmI4 

Socialists might ask how it is that many Americans are experts at grieving while entrenched in repressively divisive politics.

This is especially curious when united mourners are asked about how to prevent future grief causing incidents.  It seems simple to say "guns cause preventable death", but the rationale doesn't trump the perpetual mourning.  Grieving unites us while finding a resolution to gun violence causes division.

There's no question that Americans can prevent virtually all gun related deaths by eliminating the cause of these deaths. Nevertheless, Americans are completely polarized about how to prevent gun violence.  

When infections cause thousands of deaths, we demand a cure. Although we can't see infection causing bacteria and viruses, the guns that cause preventable deaths are visibly pandemic in our society.  It's like the Hans Christian Anderson cliche story about the parading delusional Emperor who wore no cloths. Many simply won't see guns as the cause of thousands of preventable American deaths a year.

This week's event in Boston Massachusetts fixated our national attention on the developments of a terrorist attack during a spirited 116 year old Patriot's Day traditional running marathon.  

It turned out, the Tsarnaev brothers, the suspected perpetrators of the heinous attack and murder of innocent people, had access to weapons they used to assassinate a 26 year old police officer.  Their access to weapons caused a week of preventable mayhem, because, the terrorism bombs notwithstanding, the perpetrators continued their carnage with guns.

Subsequent violence could have been averted:

"A massive police operation in Boston ended Friday night, April 19, with the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, suspected of the twin bombing Monday, April 15, at the Boston Marathon which left three dead and 180 injured and the death of a police officer in a shootout out at MIT during the day Friday. Described as armed and dangerous, he was finally hunted down hiding in a boat in a Watertown backyard and injured before he was captured."

"Many hundreds of town, state and federal officers, with helicopters, held Boston in a lockdown security measure for a day to scour the town door to door. Bostonians came out to cheer the police after hearing their mayor Tom Menino say: 'We got him!'  (Tsarnaev's) capture will enable the investigation to answer questions about the motives behind the acts of terror of which the two brothers of Chechen origin, Tzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan, 26, are suspected, and find out who else was involved. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police at Watertown earlier."

Without a doubt, the Boston terrorist tragedy was costly. Brilliant lives were lost and many millions of resources were spent in the coordinated dragnet response and conclusion.

Boston's tragedy is among a growing list of national mourning incidents.  We must learn to transpose our unifying grief to productive initiatives, that can prevent future preventable tragedies.  

Americans must continue to demand more regulations to curb gun violence and remove all the lawmakers in government who obstruct common sense resolution to a national pandemic.

We must be as united in ending gun violence as we are in mourning for the rapidly growing list of victims.