IN MEMORIUM…

He was not a close childhood friend, but he was always in my class from first grade to fifth. A blond-headed boy with a stutter.

One day in the late 1950s I was riding my bicycle past his home when he called out to me in recognition. I peddled into the driveway. He and his siblings had a brand new toy, a slip and slide. 

You fill this plastic thing with water and slide along it.

We all had a great time on this hot summer day.

To my memory, except for the fact he was a classmate in grammar school, we seldomly directly associated with each other before or after that day. But the good time we had stuck in my memory.

Decades later, I looked up his name on the internet. And I’ll tell you why. Kind of nostalgia. Also, I had just been diagnosed with an incurable but somewhat treatable form of cancer. I was 58 then. The prognosis was unclear, but gloomy. Basically some die within five years, others last much longer. I’m lasting much longer. Doing fine after 16 years from diagnosis. But back in those dark days right after diagnosis and in the midst of chemotherapy, I felt like a gonner. I wanted to reach back to my childhood.

I remembered that hot summer day in the San Joaquin Valley of California. I remember how happy we little kids were to slip along on the cool water from the garden hose. We were probably fairly heat tolerant. Only affluent folks had air conditioning. We were not in that class. I’m guessing that by the street my classmate lived on and the modest house, one might judge he was from a poor family of the lower working class. But looks can be deceiving or class distinction nonexistent. With some exceptions all of my classmates simply represented ordinary small-town working folks that made up the world I grew up in.

My family moved to another town, maybe not long after that summer day.

But, like I say, I was trying to go back in time, thinking I had not much of a future, what with the cancer diagnosis.

Through the magic of the still relatively new internet, I instantly found my classmate’s name. And where was he now?

Killed in Vietnam.

I was shocked, saddened, and at the same time given a dose of reality. Despite my self pity over my health problem, I was (still am) the survivor, the fortunate one.

If you were to see a photo of my late classmate, you would think: the all-American boy or young man, because he was.

He was a U.S. Marine private, killed in battle two months after arriving in Vietnam. He was only 20 years old.

The politics of the Vietnam War can be debated forever. But that is not important to me in writing this. I don’t know why my classmate chose to join the Marines, maybe something to do with his own family history. I’m assuming he joined, rather than being drafted. Some Marines were drafted. I know. When I joined the Army Uncle Sam had lost so many Marines in Vietnam that draftees were seated on folding chairs, with a sergeant walking down the line and declaring every other one to go to Marine boot camp.

I always feel obligated to mention that I was blessed to be sent to Germany where peace reigned, and where although we fired weapons, no one fired back.

And still, I did not fully appreciate my good fortune back then.

But since reading of my classmate’s untimely death, I do.

And that’s my memorium this Memorial Day weekend, 2023.

—————-

I omitted the name of our fallen hero out of respect for him and his family. I probably could have left out the reference to his stutter, but I just wanted to somehow form a word picture of a humble yet proud young man who followed Uncle Sam’s orders. Despite how things turned out and history by hindsight, I recall that at the time, initially, that is, the general consensus was we were fighting for the right cause. Those who are sent to fight that “right cause” don’t have the luxury to debate it.

Perilous times, in search of leadership, fending off authoritarianism, climate change…

Perilous times indeed. The nation is on the brink of falling off the financial cliff, not really for lack of money, just chicken politics, and, we’re looking at a 2024 election that at this time seems to offer four more years of Mr. Magoo or another round of the anti rule-of-law Trump, or maybe Little Trump.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continues, costing horrific structural damage and loss of life. No official fighting by the U.S. military, but billions of borrowed U.S. dollars (adding to the national debt) to pay for ammo, weapons systems, and other supplies for Ukraine.

Russia, who started the war by invading Ukraine without provocation, threatens the use of nukes, low yield tactical or ICBMs, unclear. Most likely bluster. Do we really want to find out?

Man-caused, or man-enhanced climate change seems real, but the practicalities of moving away, or fast enough, from fossil fuels, which science indicates is the major culprit, seem daunting and enough political will elusive.

Democracy is under attack all over the world, but surprisingly to me right here in the United States.

The Republican Party seems to be leaning heavily towards authoritarianism, but of course would level that charge against the Democrats.

Nonetheless, only the Republicans have either embraced election denialism or have looked the other way when its leader has.

Some opinion polls indicate the majority of voters would prefer a return to more centrist candidates.

A reportedly well-funded group called No Labels indicates it might just put up such a presidential candidate for 2024.

I like that but wonder that what with our present system it just means a third-party candidate would be a spoiler, siphoning off votes from the eventual loser.

But I think a strong centrist could overcome it all. First, that strong centrist must appear.

Back to Ukraine. It does seem like we are finally helping people who want to be helped. I think they have a grasp of western democracy. No nation building necessary. They are fending off authoritarian-led Russia.

However, I’m seeing the Ukraine war to be a responsibility of NATO. And more specifically the European people. The U.S. developed NATO but, along with Canada, is one of only two non-European members.

Because of our economic and military strength and our membership duties we, the U.S., carry a heavy burden. Europe already is doing a lot. It may need to do more. It is in the direct path of the Russians.

If NATO had to commit troops, it should be Europeans first. They’ve lived too long under our protective umbrella.

I’m not totally clear on why Ukraine can’t immediately become a NATO member, but I think it should be allowed to enter the mutual defense group. I imagine had it already been a member the Russians wouldn’t have invaded.

By all accounts the Russians are getting their butts kicked. There has even been incursions by Ukranian-backed forces into Russia itself (unofficial). And there are reports of a budding insurrection inside Russia, against the Russian government.

But, meanwhile, here at home we must be concerned about our own home-grown insurrection attempts by those who would seem to prefer fascism over all-inclusive democracy, even if they don’t really know what that means.

I’ve lived long enough to recall Barry Goldwater and even George Wallace proclaim that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the elites in both major parties.

The late Goldwater is seen by some as the father of the modern ultra right, but today’s fanatics on the right would reject him as too soft. The late Wallace, ever the politician, moderated his views.

Today, the lament is that there are few moderates left.

President Biden is more of a moderate than not, but he’s on his last legs, or so it would seem. At 80, he’s seen as past his prime.

(He did save us from Trump — for the time — and has carried out a legislative agenda.)

The most senior of presidents, Biden has no credible back up, it seems.

He only has the inappropriately-laughing Kamala Harris.

Hey, Kamala, let us in on the joke.

———————-

I don’t want to try to analyze Harris’ proclivity to laugh or giggle at the wrong time, except many suggest it’s a habit displayed when she feels uncomfortable. I don’t know. But it seems unstatesman like. Others at her level have been picked on. It comes with the territory. And she can laugh that off too, I suppose.

Should Di Fi step down from the senate or be propped up for her voting power…

Long, long-time U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein has seemingly lost her marbles — she didn’t even seem to know she was out sick for months, as evidened by her response to reporters.

(There is audio, and one reporter was charitable in suggesting she might not have understood the time frame of a question put to her, but, even he said coupling her words with other behaviors there is a question about her mental aquity).

Trouble is, she, the senior senator, and Democrat, from California, is needed for key votes in a closely-divided senate.

Another problem: there would be no easy way to relieve her of her post. It’s pretty much up to her. But with her apparent dementia, she might not realize the problem

She had been out for several months with a severe case of shingles (I’ve been there, done that, don’t want to go back). But to add to the misery, she contracted encephafilitis, which has apparently caused memory problems, like short term or long term or both. Even before her most recent absence there were whispers and then open expressions of concern about her basically being out of it.

She is 89. now, and her birthday is June 22. Feinstein has been in the senate since 1992.

She already has declared she would not seek re-election. But her current term has more than a year and a half to go.

Feinstein no doubt wants to finish out the last term in a long and storied political career.

But there should be some, a lot, really, consideration for her constituents.

However, she’s valuable to her Democratic Party for her vote.

In the past, the senate has propped up feeble old male senators for that purpose, Strom Thurmond, South Carolina, and Robert Byrd, West Virginia, as examples. The senate has been the “Old Boy’s Club”, literally.

And there is a value in propping someone up for a vote.

As a high schooler, I lived just down the road from Sen. Claire Engle, although I never saw him, just his casket lying in state in the rotunda of the Tehama County courthouse in Red Bluff, Ca.

Engle was just 52 in 1964. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He had to be carried into the senate chamber on a stretcher, but he made it there to cast a vote to break the tie to end the filibuster, by our dear afore-mentioned Senator Thurmond, who was against the Civil Rights bill of 1964. Engle voted aye to stop the filibuster by pointing to his eye.

Likewise, Engle voted in favor of the final passage of the civil rights bill. Engle died not long after.

(By the way, Thurmond was a Democrat at the time, but one of those Dixiecrats that went over to the Republicans in repudiation of civil rights legislation.)

Should Feinstein hang it up now?

Personally, as one of her constituents, I think so. But probably just have to let it play out. I’d prefer that she made the decision.

———–

I did have this wild idea: somehow convince Di Fi to retire early, then convince President Biden to release Kamala Harris from her vice presidential duties (with her assent of course) and at the same time talk California Governor Gavin Newsom into appointing Harris, a former senator herself, to fill out Feinstein’s remaining term. I’m not sure Harris is best for the senate, but she does not inspire confidence as presidential material.

(What happened to Harris? Maybe there never was a there, there. And yet. I still have this fantasy that Harris will find herself by cicumstance in the presidency and prove hefself.)

Harris, even with her flaws, might be valuable in the senate. She is an intelligent person, as far as I can determine, and her record indicates she’s progressive but able to weigh interests and not be hamstrung by ideology. Her skillset and background are that of an attorney and prosecutor. That can come in handy for questioning political appointments and prospective federal judges.

Debt limit, default threat, continuing resolutions, lack of budget: no way to run a country…

I don’t know about you, but I don’t care for the cavalier approach our congress and president have toward the national finances.

On this idiotic and dangerous argument on whether to raise the so-called federal debt limit:

Each year we go through this charade or game of financial chicken between the two political parties in which each threatens the other, or really we the public, to let everything go off the cliff, with the federal government declaring default and quit paying its bills, which include our Social Security and Medicare and a plethora of government services we might not even realize we depend upon.

These rascals in Washington D.C. are quite willing to let federal employees go without paychecks, including soldiers and sailors and airmen. But, curiously, not the congress itself.

They in cowardly fashion hide behind accusations that it’s the other side’s fault.

In most issues, this would just be politics. But default, or threat of it, affects not only our nation’s economy but that of the world.

Everything depends upon the full faith and credit of the United States to honor its debts, pay the interest it owes on its bonds, and preserve the value of the world’s benchmark currency, the dollar.

Not too surpringly, but somewhat relieving, as I write this, both sides are predicting a resolution to the impasse before the nation’s treasury goes into default, which we are told would be mere days away, the default that is.

It should be noted that the argument between the Democrats and Republicans is not whether to spend more money in the future, but whether to pay bills already incurred by both Democrats and Republicans. Of course it’s erroneously implied as being a debate on some future spending.

Think about it. A couple works out a family budget and decides it can handle some amount of short-term financing. But down the road it finds it has overspent — things happen: unexpected emergencies, inflation, loss or reduction of income. Even so, it can’t just say to creditors: sorry, we’ve reached our debt limit, and, we can’t agree to raise it, so we just won’t pay our bills. Actually, that’s called bankruptcy. Devastating for a family, unthinkable for our nation, nevertheless threatened each year by our congress and executive branch.

We need to change the system. It needs to be, pardon the buzz word, “transparent”.

A budget (and that’s future spending) needs to be presented, debated, then voted upon. I think I’m correct in saying there is no law that requires a budget to be followed, it’s just a plan. But it would be more honest and productive to debate outlays before they are made than after the contracts and the bonds are issued.

If you look this up you’ll find it’s been 20 years since congress followed a budget. Since then, it passes continuing resolutions from time to time, just like the annual debt limit fiasco. Sometimes our military, as an example, has to hold its breath to see whether it can operate the next day.

We should demand a more reasonable and secure process.

———

Was it last year that there was the novel idea that the treasury could cover expenses by simply minting a trillion-dollar coin?

This year, some scholars suggested that a clause in the 14th Amendment empowers or demands the executive to ignore a debt limit and pay bills due.

Biden might do well to endorse a successor to save us all from Trump or even Trump light…

If you wouldn’t mind if Donald Trump won another four years in the White House there’s little reason to read further here, but…if you’d rather not see that outcome, I have some observations:

First of all, Trump could win, much for the same reasons as he did in 2016, namely, dissatisfaction among the populace with the status quo and an alternative that did not excite a lot of voters. Yes, I know, Hillary Clinton did receive three million more of the popular votes than Trump, but many of us were painfully reminded that it’s the Electoral College, state by state, winner-take-all ballots, that determines the presidential winner. On election night Trump ran the table, leaving commentators and pollsters dazed.

It seems almost imcomprehensible that the Clinton team, steeped in down and dirty politics, would have failed to do its all in one crucial state, Wisconsin, which could have made the difference. But, just like a Saturday Night Live skit before the election, team Clinton was too smug and sure of itself.

The big difference this time around (2024) is we know who Trump is. I think that back in 2016, most people had little to no idea and thought: let’s get out of the same old same old in politics and elect this brash outsider. We all know who he is now and the damage he can do.

But using the same old, same old expression in a different way, even solid Democrats are concerned about re-upping the same old same old now 80 year-old and showing it Joe Biden, for another four years.

Of course Trump will be 77 soon.

(Nothing against old folks. I’m turning 74 this year and my three siblings are older. But, none of us are presidential candidates.)

Worse yet, Biden has a weak running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, who comes from Oakland, Ca., a town once described as, there’s no there there, a description, sadly, that seems to apply to Harris.

A plus, she’s young at 58.

(Personally, I’ve been waiting for Harris to prove herself worthy, but it’s maybe too late, unless by circumstance she has to step in to the top job, that would force her hand.)

Biden is running for re-election, that we know. He’s made it official. And so is Trump, to a non-consecutive second term. We don’t know for sure whether Trump will win the Republican nomination, but since most Republican politicians are scared of him and his MAGA followers (like being scared of the school bully and the toughs who surround him), well…

This strange Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who has taken on Mickey Mouse (the Disney Corp.) and wokeness, and women’s rights, nonetheless who seems like a perhaps more conventional politician than Trump, might as well be Trump light, except he’s not Trump, and he’s only 44, Young blood. He’s currently in the race, but just not officially. He had Trump’s favor until Trump saw him as a contender or that he might have a mind of his own.

There are some more Republican contenders. It’ll be interesting to see if they can get more traction and lay out a reasonable and coherent policy agenda, something beyond hot button issues used to mask a lack of imagination and seriousness.

One Democrat who has stood up to challenge President Biden is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his late father being the brother of President John F. Kennedy and a once presidential candidate himself (both brothers of course the victims of assassination).

RFK Junior is a bit offbeat, an environmental lawyer, a liberal, but an anti-vaxxer. Big pharma and the corporate world are his his sworn enemies. He’s 69 years old. I heard part of his candidate announcement — it went on for two hours — and an interview. He has not held public office, but he presents himself as man of the people and has that magic Kennedy connection (or is that magic long past?). I’m fascinated by liberals from rich-family backgrounds. Not having to worry about money themselves, they can concentrate on social and environmental issues.

Moderates, such as myself, don’t want to see even Trump light, which pretty much takes in most, not all, of the Republican field so far. Even if a Republican has a record that indicates he or she is not like Trump, I can’t respect that person if he or she fails to repudiate Trump, who made America look ugly, who tried to overthrow our democracy, who simply lies openly with impunity, and thereby insults your intelligence and mocks you.

(Please don’t tell me they all do. In some small degree, perhaps, but the element of truth is usually in there. Trump knowingly tells untruths. He knows you know it. He basically says, accept it or who cares?)

President Biden could do his country a favor by endorsing a successor. He’s actually done a fairly good job so far. But biology, age, weighs against him. He’d be 86 by the end of a second term.

There would be no disgrace by gracefully stepping down. He’s had a long career in politics, his whole adult life.

But who to endorse?

He could get radical and step down before the 2024 election, take it away Kamala. Ok, bad idea.

Some wish Michelle Obama would run. She seems adamant that no means no. But Michelle, what if your country needs you?

If Biden would open it up, who knows who might emerge?

I’m believing a crucial part of Hillary’s loss in 2016 was too many Democrats (and independents) failed to vote. With the ambivalence toward Biden, that might happen again.

————-

Another big factor that plays against Biden and all Democrats is that the Democratic Party is no longer perceived as representing the working class. In a weird flip flop in my lifetime, the Republicans, the party of Lincoln (freer of the slaves), has turned into the anti-civil rights party, and the Democrats have lost the support of the working class. Under President Richard Nixon, the Republicans successfully went after the votes of upset white folks. Under Hillary’s husband President Bill Clinton, the Democrats sought to broaden their base at the expense of the working class.

I read a piece in a foreign newspaper the other day that claimed political parties are more about winning than a particular ideology or specific constituency. Maybe so.

To quell illegal immigration, quit hiring illegals, spread out border officers, expand the force, deploy more military…

Note: below I have barely addressed the idea that we ought to be compassionate and receive these desperate migrants fleeing starvation and other horrors in their home countries, realizing of course, among them are some bad actors. Since so many of these people often fill jobs with low wages that are hard to fill, we’d supply labor where needed and have some added control of immigration in the process. Worth considering, but current political realities seem to prevent that.

—————

Stopping the incentive to come would go a long ways to reduce illegal immigration.

True, people coming in are desperate due to economic and crime and political corruption in their home countries, but they must feel they can get work in the U.S.

I’ve never understood why there is not consistent enforcement against hiring people not qualified to work in the U.S.

In this era of all your personal data on display whether you are comfortable with that it is impossible to buy that the government can’t keep track (how often do you have to give out your social security number?). Employers should not be allowed to turn a blind eye to immigration qualifications or to take advantage of people.

Many sectors of employment seem dependent on illegal workers, but that’s just a supply and demand problem. Take cheap labor away you have to pay more. We all have to pay more, except maybe we save on the social services side used to subsidize private employers.

For lack of labor, some things won’t get done. But that will work itself out. Some things will be automated, some out of work folks will be lured in by better wages.

I’m relatively sure with the crisis of thousands or millions sneaking in it will require more immigration and border officers. How about spreading them out instead of crowding them around those check stations often some distance from the actual border.

I support the use of the military, but in a cautious manner. Law supposedly requires they not be used in direct enforcement. But certainly the military must have top notch modern surveillance capabilities to advise deployment of enforcement officers.

I’m not sure but what the president could declare an emergency and directly deploy troops for enforcement in an extreme situation.

(The Texas governor has deployed a national guard unit under state authority for direct enforcement. Legal? Maybe not. Shades of Little Rock High School in the 1950s, the president in a similar move could nationalize the unit, if he felt it illegal. President Eisenhower reversed the roll of the national guard from preventing school integration to enforcing it. Or maybe Biden will welcome the help if things get too out of hand.)

Reports on Friday after the Title 42 remain–in-Mexico rule was lifted are that the expected surge was not as bad as anticipated. That can quickly change.

More messages need to be sent outside our borders that illegal entry no longer will be tolerated. Vice President Kamala Harris did that months ago, and reportedly there are new alerts, but it has to be backed up by enforcement to be an effective message.

Penalties for human smugglers should be severe.

At the same time, there needs to be compassion. I am not for putting people in cages or separating families.

The military and others should be enlisted to attend to medical needs and the feeding of illegal immigrants taken into custody, to the extent or more so than is the current case.

(I think public service is a great roll for troops not involved in active combat.)

Unfortunately, most illegals need to be put on a bus or plane back to their point of origin. We don’t appear to be prepared to handle it all at this time.

But, starting now, we need new immigration policies that allow for more orderly and humane legal entry. Prospective applicants could be required to have sponsors, who might be employers or family members. But these sponsors must be willing to take on some real liability.

We need immigration. And it should not be restricted by race or ethnicity or economic class. But it must be orderly. It is not now.

Millions sneak in, get caught, are given a court date and then disappear or are never called, and effectively dissappear, due to the backlog of immigration cases.

Both major political parties share the blame for our out-of-control immigration system. Instead of working together to fix it they use the crisis as a cudgel against one another.

In shorthand: Republicans and others want cheap labor; Democrats want votes from potential new citizens.

In the short run we need tougher enforcement against the hiring of undocumented workers and enforcement at the border.

A country without effective borders and the ability to formally recognize its citizens will wither into something less than a nation state and chaos will ensue.

As I understand it, they’re sneaking in over both borders, north and south, but the south gets the most attention. Illegals also arrive via boats and commercial flights.

We need to hold our elected representatives’ feet to the fire and call for action beyond blaming their political opponents.

——————

While it is usually stated that the military cannot be used for domestic law enforcement there is disagreement on the interpretation of law on this, including what constitutes law enforcement.

From Wilipedia:

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385, original at 20 Stat. 152) signed on June 18, 1878, by President Rutherford B. Hayes which limits the powers of the federal government in the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States. Congress passed the Act as an amendment to an army appropriation bill following the end of Reconstruction and updated it in 1956 and 1981.Posse Comitatus Act

Same old same old from Trump except he promises to end war in Ukraine…

I’m not sure what the point of the CNN so-called town hall meeting in New Hampshire was.

Except for Donald Trump’s claim that he would stop the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, it was just his usual schtick made up of lies and misstatements and to be charitable possibly observations that can’t be classified as false.

I know there was a buildup before his one-man show that his journalistic questioner would be tough, and maybe she was but he was apparently in a room full of partisans and devoted followers. How was that supposed to work?

It almost seems as if CNN was trying to outfox their Fox competitor by instead of feeding him leading questions or softballs designed to enhance his answers, they threw what they hoped would be a tough prosecutor at him…even better for Trump. All he had to do was make her into his foil.You know, liberal media trying to get at him.

I’m not familiar with this journalist. But for my money she fell into the Trump trap. She wasted the whole fiasco trying to get him to say the 2020 election was not stolen. Who cares what he thinks? Did she think he was going to change his tune?

I also questioned her unsuccessful attempts, made over and over, to pin Trump down on at what time frame in a pregnancy, if any, he would call for abortions to be allowed. While I thought his repeated answer was cold and inhuman, he did clearly say he’d “negotiate” on that, that the Supreme Court decision to reverse the 50-year-old precedent and drop the constititionl right of women to have an abortion gave anti-abortionists tremendous bargaining power. As we know, with Trump everything is transactional.

How would he pull off the miracle of stopping the war in Ukraine in 24 hours? He did not specifically say. But from his own past statements and actions we know he admires Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. I imagine he’d broker a deal to give the Russians territory. And, who knows? In the end that might be the only way.

Trump decried the billions of dollars being spent to support Ukrainian defense. He also bitterly complained that the European nations are not contributing enough and that since they are closer to the war, they should. Right or wrong, that’s a fair observation, perhaps.

He mocked the lady he was accused of sexually molesting and who just won a civil judgment against him involving her claim. That was crude and ugly. But worse was the laughter he got from the audience.

True, it all supposedly took place 30 years ago, and there was no physical or even much what I’d call direct evidence, but given testimony by friends of her statements at the time, and given Trump’s flip admission of his attitude toward treating women, and testimony of other accusers, and so on, I think most of us can believe he was culpable. Why couldn’t he have just said: I’m sorry the poor woman believes what she believes but I didn’t do it? Because he’s a misogynist, whether he’s responsible or not.

I’ll be charitable to CNN. Maybe the cable network did a public service by reminding everyone who and what Trump is.

‐——————————-

I listened to almost the whole sad affair on Sirius Radio while driving a big truck and sitting in a traffic jam in Portland, Or, caused by a lifted drawbridge, only the second time caught in more than 25 years.

Public safety should take precedence over your right to target practice…

In the face of continued and escalating horrific mass shootings the only logical reason I can see any mostly well balanced and civilized person would stubbornly oppose an assault weapons ban is the slippery slope argument.

Some see cherished American gun rights as all or nothing. Enact any restrictions and the door is opened for more.

There’s some logic to that until one considers the public safety aspect.

Unless we’re talking turning our lives into bloody chaos and turning our society over to complete anarchy, it is illogical to cling to the notion that the right to have a mass killing weapon is sacrosanct.

Now there are places in the U.S. where for decades the nights have been punctuated constantly by gun fire, mostly in the urban slums. Those not forced to live or be there can stay away and feel secure and immune from violence, or until now maybe.

In the past couple decades the phenomenon of mass shootings and killings, almost always perpetrated by a single deranged individual, has reared its ugly head.

No place is safe. They take place in shopping malls, grocery stores, churches, elementary school classrooms, high schools, college campuses, night clubs, dance studios, theaters, concerts, birthday parties, farms, various workplaces– anywhere and everywhere.

The thing I don’t get: how do we dare send our children to school in light of incidents such as Sandy Hook, Uvalde, and Nasville, to name only a few?

How do we think it’s ok for madmen to be able to so easily obtain assault weapons?

Is it more important for folks to own assault rifles to target practice with than protect our children and the public at large?

The perpetrator in the most recent mass shooting with a military assault rifle (as of this writing) is reported to have been a military reject. No matter, he was free to obtain his personal killing machine and mow innocent folks down, including a three-year old and his parents, in the Allen, Texas incident.

I won’t even try to analyze here the value of the Second Amendment right for citizens to keep and bear arms, except to say I think it’s ambiguous when its history, the militia and all, is considered, and I doubt the Founding Fathers envisioned such mayhem in their day of single-shot muskets that took some time to load. Surly, they would not approve of the situation today.

But I suppose until you are actually directly affected (a victim or relative or friend of one), you have the false confidence all is still ok. Just the usual random violence.

But to date in this year we’ve had these mass shootings at the rate of one or more per day. Granted there’s no universal method for calculating, number of victims and such, but if you follow the news you know it’s an escalating epidemic.

(I know, you think someone’s padding the statistics, it’s fake news, and Covid was a myth.)

The list of dead and wounded is well into the hundreds already this year (and it’s just early May). Most mass shootings or killings are done with assault rifles. But not all. I think the year began with a mass stabbing.

I got the following tally for the year so far from Wikipedia.

Totals: 185 incidents, 254 dead, 708 wounded.

We will never prevent all homicides of course.

But we certainly could curtail the epidemic of assault rifle-powered mass shootings.

Assault weapons were banned for a time, but we got complacent and the commercial gun lobby stepped in.

As individuals we are limited on what to do, except run and duck for cover when we hear the shots.

But we have elected lawmakers who need to overcome their fear of losing campaign donations or being primaried out by the gun lobby. Yes, as a lawmaker you owe it to your constituents to represent their interests. But public safety should be paramount. I believe most folks know as a matter of common sense that unfettered access to AR-15 assault rifles, and the like, good only for mass killing of people, is not a safe and sound situation. And I believe if a lawmaker took the stand that in the interests of public safety assault weapons should be banned, he or she would get the support of most voters, not all, but most. But the worst that would likely happen is if not, he or she loses an election. I don’t think public office should be a profession anyway.

(The thought has been lawmakers need to be well paid so they can’t be bought. But they are bought anyway. We just need more ethical people in office, people who have other means of income but give some time to public service.)

Various polls indicate that a majority of Americans support stricter and more effective gun regulation, and that includes Second Amendment supporters.

I, however, can’t vouch for the validity of any poll.

For some reason our democracy does not seem structured in such a way that elected officials respond to voters, but rather to those who buy their time. That may be in part because voters don’t always show up to the polls, but the special interests are always at the lawmaker’s door.

—————–

I may be off base with my push for citizen-public-service-minded lawmakers. I just get the idea that professional politicians feel more at home with the lobby crowd than the voters and act accordingly.