Monday, February 19, 2018

How Long Must We Sing This Bloody Song



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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