Las Vegas - 10/2/2017
Somewhere along my ride in this country in which I grew up
protected, it was derailed by some pernicious fascination with “me before
you.” Division. Disunion.
Discord. Perpetual
Disagreement.
I am hollowed out by the mounting loss of life that will
climb inevitably from the inexplicable and yet unexplainable rampage in Las
Vegas by a man within months of my own age.
Is this how we shall all end?
Shall we once again start the old dance of dithering again?
What happened? Who was he? How did he get access? Was he unstable? Should we all stop and pray? It was evil, wasn’t it? Have we let another with all the indicators and
warnings get access to weapons of mass human destruction? Have we once again overlooked our own
responsibility to monitor ourselves for the indeterminable mental fractures to
which we are all of us susceptible?
In Washington, our Congress is currently “hearing” (pun
intended) the “Hearing Protection Act.”
That is, an act to allow owners of arms to purchase additional
accessories to “suppress” or “moderate” the sound produced by the explosion
heard after the discharge of a bullet from a weapon, be it pistol or long – gun
(think rifle or AK47). A similar movement has been underway in the Illinois
General Assembly.
Rationale? The use of
a silencer on a gun or long rifle will prevent the kind or hearing damage that
President Theodore Roosevelt found discomforting when he hunted or took target
practice. In fact, it might even prove
medically beneficial to those who are enjoying the nation’s Second Amendment’s
expansion in the last twenty years. And,
as you might have expected, The National Rifle Association has been pushing and
paying hard for this legalization. As in
their earlier advocacy of allowing the mentally ill access to purchase weapons
as a safety to prevent them from illegally acquiring weapons (are you following
that?), silencers will prevent hunters who use powerful semi automatics like
Bushmasters and AK47’s for hunting deer or checking into the Mandalay Bay from
going deaf after using their constitutionally sanctioned instruments.
In fact, the use of a “suppressor” will reduce the sound of
a round’s exit from the barrel of a rifle or AR15 enough to lower it 30 or so
decibels. In the middle of a concert, or
a movie, or a loud gathering – well, that’s just enough to reduce in time the
awareness of what is exactly happening.
And, let’s not forget that the likely culprit – a .308 Hotshot
Winchester round designed to tunnel through a bullet vest – for the nearly
twenty rifles a poor deranged man had accumulated in a hotel room cost nearly
$2 a round. This took not only a
commitment to all our darker angels but also a merciless and meticulous plan to invest in the
death of so many unfortunate and undeserving souls.
So, we’ll dance some more around the center of our own
immolation, twirl about the questions of gun control – but we’ll all settle for
the silent prayer and the heartless condolences. And
we’ll wait…
Until we can be tearful partners in our national dance
again.
In Washington, Sarah Huckabee Sanders reminds us all it is
way too early to bring up discussions of gun control. We need to find the facts first. We need to mourn and respect the fallen.
The President offers his prayers and concerns. Not much else, except that we’ve “seen pure
evil.” As if we hadn’t seen all
variations already.
There’s a significant point in Shirley Jackson’s
metaphorically poignant short story “The Lottery,” where the village people
draw each year to see who they will stone to death in order to be safe, each
and all of them, for the following year,
“The people had done it so many times that they only half listened…most
of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around…”
Listen. Are they
playing “Sandy Hook?”
Shall you lead…or shall I?
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