Healing gun violence

"Violence is an interconnected web that has totally entangled our nation." Fr. Bob Layne.

Mass shootings in the USA in 2021: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mass-shootings-u-s-2021-n1264354

Bob Layne: Why do we keep killing each other? Opinion published in the Kansas newspaper The Hutchinson News. Fr. Bob Layne is a retired Episcopal priest in McPherson.

In just one month in 2021, the US has suffered through tragedies in Atlanta, Boulder, Virginia Beach, Indianapolis and other gun murderers.

From whence comes such horrible violence? Why do we keep killing each other? The NRA and the ongoing gun lobby provides the means. The gun culture, so vehemently defended by the NRA, ensures that any would-be murderer has readily available ample means to do the killing. 

Handguns and semi-automatic weapons are nothing but anti-personnel weapons. They are guns designed to kill people. There is nothing “sporting” about them.

Yet, still, the (IMO domestic terrorist group) NRA protects the right and the readiness for any gunslinger to obtain one, including deadly automatic weapons. If violence is the message of the media, the means to do that violence is ensured by well-funded groups, like the National Rifle Association.

Enough is enough!  #EndGunViolence

Unfortunately, the previous Trumpzi national leadership modeled the message. A former guy president sought to solve the evil of terrorism by employing preemptive violence. He chose war.

Many continue to violently die. Obviously, seeking vengeance by returning violence for violence has not worked. And even today, our political leaders are more intent upon destroying the “other” political party than doing the work of the nation. In an important national debate, the message is “destroy the other guy”.

So the message is heard, the means are there, and the violence, physical or verbal, is used. Violence is an interconnected web that has totally entangled our nation.

How can we break free?

Perhaps we might measure a male no longer by his machismo power to conquer and control, but by his strength of character, his respect for all, and his willingness to risk loving another.  Moreover, perhaps we might begin measuring a woman no longer by her measurements and allure, but by her willingness to grow her family, her strength in bringing up those around her and her care for all hurting humanity.

Such a shift in emphasis would certainly be a change in humanity's infrastructure. Or more simply, we might begin to live the injunction given so long ago; we might just begin to love one another. I think it is still worth a try!

The seedbed of all this violence is a constant message that permeates American life: “violence solves problems”. From the Saturday cartoons to cheering fans of Ultimate Fighting in cages, through movies and television shows, we celebrate, sensationalize, and reward acts of violence as the means to solve all our troubles.

The message declares if one’s aims are thwarted, then punish or destroy that which stands in the way.

The problem will be solved. And that is exactly what so many of our vulnerable, impressionable, and immature fellow humans do. They solve their problems by removing the perceived hindrance. 

Such a shift in emphasis would certainly be a change in humanity's infrastructure. Or, more simply, we might begin to live the injunction given so long ago; we might just begin to love one another. I think it is still worth a try!

Confessions of a Republican ~ echo essay by Leonard Pitts

Vote Blue! Be a proud Democrat!

An editorial essay published in The Hutchinson News, a Kansas newspaper; written by Leonard Pitts.

The other day, a woman confessed to me (MaineWriter~ Ahh? Like she was in a confessional?) that she’s a Republican. (!)

Republicans may bristle at the verb, but it’s used advisedly. In fact, the lady admitted her party affiliation the way you would some personal failing. “I don’t tell a lot of people,” she said, “but . . .”

To be fair, the reticence might have been in part because we met in a blue state. But she also made clear her disenchantment with the GOP on its own merits -- or lack thereof. 

And who can blame her? 

In genuflecting before a rabid rabble of vulgarians, hyper-nationalists and flat-out bigots -- the “base” -- her party has embraced stealing Supreme Court seats, “alternative” facts, alienating allies, kissing up to enemies, “good people on both sides,” tax breaks for billionaires -- and Donald Trump. 

Republicans are a moral train wreck.

She’s hardly the only Republican who feels estranged. Another woman told me, “The Republican Party has clearly lost its way. Actions speak louder than words in politics. You cannot campaign and say you’re a fiscal conservative when you allow the debt to increase to the degree that it has or to provide the types of giveaways in the tax bill that the Republicans have given away.”

This person was not simply a Republican voter, but a former elected official, Claudine Schneider, a Rhode Island congresswoman who left office in 1991. 

“I am astounded with the lack of backbone,” she told me by telephone. “My assessment is, the Republicans keep hearing how popular Donald Trump is and I think the House and Senate members are just inclined to go along to get along. . . . It’s all about holding on to power. It’s essentially, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to get re-elected.’ ”

So Schneider has assembled a group of like-minded former GOP officials, Republicans for Integrity, to hold the party to account. “Though we are lifelong Republicans,” she wrote in a Miami Herald op-ed, “we are urging you to vote only for candidates who will restore the kind of integrity and constitutional accountability that our nation’s forefathers intended.”

“I’m not going to be one that’s going to argue that we should defeat all Republicans,” RFI member and former Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe told me. ”. . . .But I do believe Republicans need to stand up for principles and for integrity and they need to stand up to a president when he’s not following those principles.”

And doesn’t the group’s name speak volumes? Like “Jews for Jesus” or “Blacks for Trump,” it’s an implicit acknowledgment that what it describes is a departure from the norm. In “Republicans for Integrity,” then, we have a group of Republicans conceding that integrity has become rather rare in the GOP.

That’s something the party has yet to face. One recalls Sen. Lindsey Graham, in the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearing, yelling at his Democratic enemies -- another word used advisedly -- about their supposed willingness to do anything to achieve their goals. “Boy, y’all want power,” he sneered. “I hope you never get it!”

It was a moment of sheer moral disconnect that brought to mind a verse from Matthew: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own?”

Republicans should heed that injunction. Especially given that it comes not just from “leftists,” “libtards” and “Demwits,” but from inside their own tent. Party stalwarts such as George Will, Jeff Flake and Bill Kristol have all complained about the stench of rotting elephant. Now “Republicans for Integrity” is a thing.

“I don’t tell a lot of people . . .” the woman said. And it was sobering.

“I’m a Republican” should not be something you confess (Perhaps, only in a Confessional?).

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald,