Yesterday, I took a neighborhood walk with two dogs
and two teachers. We must have gone ten
full minutes before the teachers stopped talking about the safety measures in
place at their schools. One teaches high
school, the other elementary school. No
matter – they both realize that they teach in dangerous environments. That’s what the suburban American public
school has become: a place where teachers and students alike increasingly go to
die.
For some, the Broward massacre was the last
straw. For me, it was just the latest
manifestation of the cancer that has been spreading for some time. Other countries face the scourge of gun
deaths and do something about it. Here
in America, our politicians dare not even try.
Consequently, we shoot and kill at a far greater rate than our “peer”
countries. Our politicians have blood
on their hands, but they seem to sleep just fine. They’ve bought into the principle that the annual
death of tens of thousands of Americans is a small price to pay for the “right
to bear arms” – just as it’s a small price to pay for the right to smoke
cigarettes. People realize, though,
that deaths from smoking are due to a cancer stick. Gun deaths stem from a different kind of cancer
agent – yet, for some reason, it’s one we romanticize.
We romanticize guns in video games. We romanticize guns on TV or in the movies. We romanticize guns in the context of hunting
defenseless animals, which we call “sport.”
We romanticize guns on political talk shows, when politicians wax
eloquent about the childhood joy of learning how to shoot with their
grandparents. Yet nobody talks so romantically about
cigarettes, at least not in public. Why
the double standard? Both guns and
cigarettes can be fun, and both can be deadly.
Is the difference that guns are
needed by policemen and soldiers, whereas cigarettes aren’t needed by anyone? As I’m neither a cop nor a soldier, I can’t
imagine why I would need a gun – except, perhaps, to hand to my wife so she’ll
have one when she goes out in the morning to teach kids in her elementary
school.
By a ratio of about 24 to one, Americans support
laws requiring background checks. By a
ratio of about four to one, Americans support laws banning assault weapons. But even though we live in a “democracy,” neither
of those laws have a prayer. The officialdom
of the Republican Party has made a decision that nothing is to be done to stop
the scourge of gun violence. These
officials would rather watch young people die in droves than risk primary
opposition fueled by the NRA. They are
gladly willing to gamble that those of their constituents who oppose assault weapons
and support background checks won’t ultimately base their voting decisions on
these issues. Cynical, perhaps, but they’ve won plenty of
elections using this reasoning. You
could call it shrewd; I find it disgusting.
If you’re a rank-in-file Republican, I would ask you
in 2018 to take the plunge and vote Democrat – support a politician who isn’t
bought and sold by the NRA. If you’re a
Democrat, I would ask that you stop going to movies or watching TV shows that
glorify violence. If you’re a parent, I
would ask that you keep violent video games away from your children. If you’re a cigarette smoker, I would ask
that you explain to gun lovers why they are surely no saner than you are.
It also helps to start thinking about the individuals
who died in this latest manifestation of the great American Gun Cancer. Pick one who reminds you a bit of yourself –
except that our gun culture never gave them a chance to live long enough to
vote Democratic or to keep a child away from a violent video game. Personally, I want to call your attention to
one Alex Schachter, a 14-year-old Jewish boy.
Like yours truly, Alex played brass instruments. I played trumpet in the band and orchestra,
he played baritone in the band and trombone in the orchestra. To be sure, it is far more impressive to play
two brass instruments than one, and from his picture, it is clear that Alex was
a lot better looking than I ever was. But
at least I can try to relate to his life. Then again, I can’t really relate to being 14
years old, going to school one day, hearing gun shots, realizing that my
society has chosen to do nothing in the face of one deadly school shooting
after another, and feeling a bullet
pierce through my skin.
I can never imagine what it’s like to be Alex
Schachter. Sadly, Alex can never again imagine
what it’s like to be me, either. Empathic Rationalism requires me to try to
empathize with his situation – to feel the pain he felt during the last few
minutes of his life. But more
importantly, it requires me to work to confront this scourge once and for all
so that the United States is no longer an outlier when it comes to the number
of our Alex Schachters.
The next time you contemplate voting for a
Republican, please consider that Alex Schachter is gone, his parents are living
in torment, and the guy you’re thinking about voting for is willing to do
nothing about any of this. Is that acceptable to you?
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