Tag Gun Violence

Forgetting to remember

Michael 11 Comments

An article penned by Pittsburgh Post Gazette Ariana Ramirez sparked a thought in my old, tired brain. Her premise was that cries of “never forget” fall on deaf ears of those who are not intimately familiar with the whatever that is not to be forgotten. Her examples were the September 11 attacks and the JFK assassination.

There seem to be precious few of us who remember the events of 1963 and that may well explain why fewer tears are shed each November. The terrorist attacks of a mere 24 years ago though. That’s recent events, right? Ms. Ramirez reminded me that those on college campuses today were still years from being born. “How can someone remember something they never experienced in the first place?” She asked before clarifying, “Ninety to 95 million Americans were born since 1998. How can they understand what it means to the people who do remember?”

I’ll go a step further than that. In a world where the world’s most popular short form social network’s most popular post length is less than 30 seconds and “educational” content sometimes reach 60 seconds, the chance of remembering anything are roughly the same odds of college freshman remembering 9/11.

The same people who after last week’s shooting of a conservative activist were posting “We must never let this happen again,” had already forgotten about the two children killed and 21 others injured 15 days earlier. Or any of the 11 other Americans killed by gun fire during 16 mass shootings that took place between those two events.

The rhetoric on both sides is becoming embarrassing. That is a significant difference from a year ago when the rhetoric on just one side was embarrassing. The right continues to push that the problem is not guns but the people who use the guns unless it is a right-wing shooter then it’s the fault of the system and we need better active shooter training. By the way, here are our thoughts and prayers. When the left had been pushing for reasonable gun control laws, they seem to have now abandoned that hopeless (until the NRA is disbanded) case, and now have turned to remind the Republican caucus of their failures to address any meaningful gun issues and to remind the American public of the failures of the current administration. Both superfluous.

We must never forget:

     There are responsibilities that go with each right

     Guns don’t kill people, the bullets launched from them do

     People launch bullets from guns

     Thoughts and prayers are a component of humanity, not a solution to violence

     Things that happened before the most recent 40 second post are still important

On September 11, 2025, I had the opportunity to act as master of ceremonies for a special event. Before I opened the event I asked for a moment of silence to remember those who gave their lives during the 9/11 attacks. Usually when a “moment of silence” is requested, people begin to stir on their feet or in their seats at about the 20 second mark. I am pleased(?) to report the audience that day was still bowed in prayer and remembrance long after the full minute I held my silence, raised my head, and looked over the crowd. Maybe we are getting better. Maybe we are remembering. Maybe we will never forget. Maybe some day we will act.

The Orange Menace versus Pizza Man

Michael 7 Comments

Hello everyone. I’m home! Something 3 people in Minnesota will never say. In breaking with my new tradition of discovering and delivering only good news on Thursdays, we’re going to talk about the recent shootings in Minneapolis. Yes, shootings – plural.

We all know that a deranged 23-year-old, armed with a rifle, shotgun, and handgun, opened fire through a window of a Catholic Church on school children attending daily mass, killing 2 children ages 8 and 10, injuring 14 other kids, and also injuring 3 adults in their 80s. Yes, the Second Amendment gave him that right. Or so that’s the perspective of every New Wave Republican, NRA member, gun owner, MAGnut, and other disgustingly irrational fruitcake, including everybody who ever own, ran, or invested in a firearms company in the U S of A.

Less than 24 hours earlier, some other nutcase opened fire on six individuals outside a nearby Catholic high school, killing one. Depending on your perspective, they could be related. That’s as reasonable an assumption as that there are two wackos targeting religious groups in the same city at the same time. I’m not sure which is scarier.

Just two days ago, the orange menace said on camera that it’s not a dictator, it “just knows how to stop crime.” Let’s see it stop that. I’ll tell you where it’s going to land. It will tell you that the shooter at the Assumption shooting was a suspected trans person. It’s putting a stop to people deciding what gender they want to be so we can forget about this one. What will he say about the gun freaks who have killed 195 other people in 24 school shootings since the Columbine massacre in April 1999? Let’s not even bring up all the people targeted at churches, synagogues, temples, other houses of worship. So-called “normal” people committed these crimes. Come on criminal-pardoner-in-chief, let’s see what you can do to stop these crimes. What sycophant will you appoint to the committee to look into how to lie about those. Well, I suppose it a matter of perspective.

It’s time for action and we don’t mean some unhinged social media rant in all caps posted in the dead of the night. And the last thing we need are thoughts and prayers. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said it best: “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying.”

In the midst of all this, here is some good news. Also from a Minneapolis suburb this week, Chuck Kolstad, owner of Pizza Man in Columbia Heights, puts food out for people who previously were rummaging through his dumpster for food. He tells them to call, or leave a note by the door saying they are hungry and he’d leave food out for them. He said there are always mistakes or extras they can’t sell and rather than throwing them away, he offers these to the hungry homeless. His efforts caught the attention of food truck and other restaurant owners who have also offered to help. That’s a perspective with a positive view.

So, now it’s time, even with this sad news, to plug the latest Uplift post, A Matter of Perspective. Not everything in life is valued equally by all, but all value everything according to their own wants and needs.

On being loved into being

Michael 6 Comments

I was working in adapting a post I wrote for my foundation site for here because, well, because I think it’s really good and would make a great lead up to Thanksgiving blog post. I thought after what we as country just went through having to experience the childishness that accompanied s years general election, that a word from someone who worked so successfully with children is just what the doctor ordered. So I ordered it.

And then Colorado Springs happened. You’ve heard of that incident. Five dead. Nineteen wounded. One nut case up with a f-ing assault rifle destroys the dreams of 24 People because he has a “right” to carry an assault weapon into a crowd and start firing. Of course you know that same day in Philadelphia, Mississippi nut case or nut cases unknown shot seven people, killing one, over a dice game.

If you’re keeping score, those are mass shootings #26 and 27 in the US for the month of November. Not the year – for November’s, which still has 10 days to go. One of them is Thanksgiving. Are you still thankful we have the “right” to carry guns at will? Maybe this will help. How are 602 mass shootings for this year.

It’s time to stop this madness.

The  post that  I was going to rework, you can read it here. And actually if I were you I would. It’s a whole lot happier and more positive than this dreck.

The theme running through that post is based in an idea voiced by Fred Rogers in his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed to him at the 24th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1997, “All of us have special ones who loved us into being.” What a wonderful way of thinking of how we have become who we are, that there are people who have loved us into being. Gratitude is not, and should not, be an exercise is saying thanks for what we have, for in truth we will not always have. We should be expressing thanks because we are, because even when we do not have, we always will be.

Maybe the nut cases of the world didn’t have anybody to love them into being. We did. Be grateful. Be grateful you have people who have loved you into being. Say thank you to them, because without them, you are not the who you are.

Seriously, do yourself a favor, go read it. It will take you less time to read than you’ve spent reading this junk that I’ve written here.  Go find out about this idea of being loved into being. And then go out and love somebody that much.

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Used with permission

A well regulated argument

Michael 2 Comments

I had a hard time debating with myself if I wanted to post this or not. It’s a topic that gets beaten to death so often you’d think it would be reasonable enough and just die but then, it’s not a reasonable topic. I also thought about putting out a “special” post last Friday because it was Gun Violence Awareness Day. But then I thought, the last thing you needed was me throwing in a nickel’s worth of my two cents on that day.

There is no doubt there is gun violence all over the place. Every week brings new mass shootings to the national news and local newscasts are filled with stories of shootings every day. In my greater metro area, between Friday and Sunday of this past weekend, four people lost their lives to gun violence and several others injured. There have been less than a handful of days a shooting hadn’t been reported here since a local mass shooting at an AirBnB party the night before Easter, including one when the victim was a one year old sitting in the back of a car targeted in a drive by shooting. If you’re not aware of the gun violence in the United States, then you’re really too stupid to be reading this.

So let’s summarize, all the people who think the Second Amendment gives you the right to own a gun, you’re wrong.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That was, is, and forever will be until its repeal, all the Second Amendment says. Nobody can deny you the possession of a weapon used to defend the STATE (i.e. the USA) if done so needed as a part of a REGULATED military effort). Considering we have a perfectly acceptable armed forces system now that was not in place in 1789, there is no longer a reason to guarantee anybody to right to maintain a weapon. But even if there was, the right is only protected when used to defend the country. Not to hunt, not to target shoot, not to defend oneself, not to forget you have it in your carryon bag at the airport, not to settle suburban hedge trimming disputes, and not to commit mass, or even single murder.

I am nothing if I cannot look at both sides, so let’s look. Gun control advocates point to the numbers, the most often quoted is that in the U. S. of A. in 2020, there were 45,222 gun related deaths (I don’t know why but that’s the last year the total is available). Gun advocates will say, “Woah, woah, woah. Over half of those were suicides.” And they are right. Fifty-four percent of the 45,000+ deaths, or about 24,000 were suicides. They don’t mention, but I will, that 2% (a little over 900). That leaves 43% or 19,455 people intentionally killed by another American presumably exercising his or her right to own a gun as part of a regulated militia to protect the country. That is over 19,000 people who were victims of gun violence.

The gun advocate will say that of those 45,222, almost 25,000 people were going to die anyway. (Maybe, maybe not, but let’s stick with saving the 19,000 for now.)  How does that compare. Forget deaths due to cancer, heart disease, train derailments, bad lettuce, or anything else not gun related. Let’s compare that to those who are participating in protecting the country in the modern well-regulated armed forces system. And let’s not just look at 2020. Let’s look at the entire twenty-first century to date. So far, in all armed conflicts since 2001, there have been 7,075 fatalities, about an average of 36 per year. That’s 18,964 LESS deaths due to defending the state in a well regulated military than deaths due to gun violence. Per year.

I could stop there but somebody is going to say, “But I just use my gun for hunting or target shooter or protecting my family. Not to randomly shoot somebody.” First, let’s ignore the protect your family argument because if you have a gun for protection and you are not planning on shooting somebody if you need protecting, then why do you have it? Then for the hunters and sportsmen (sportspeople?), you don’t need an assault rifle to shoot a deer, nor a 60 or 100 shot magazine to fire 20 times at a paper target. And really, you don’t need any ammunition at all until you’re ready to hunt or competitively shoot. I recall reading an argument to not regulate guns but, given that the Second Amendment is quiet on what you load into those arms, to ban ammunition. Maybe not such a horrible idea.

Consider this. For years, I shot skeet recreationally. (I’m not sure why because you just can’t make a good meal out of them, but even so … anyway) Every Sunday afternoon I could be found at the rod and gun club blasting clay pigeons into oblivion. I travelled to and from the club with my unloaded shot gun and at the club bought only the amount of ammunition I would use for the afternoon’s festivities and then go home with an unloaded shotgun. They say never to store you gun and ammunition in the same place. Mine were separated by about 15 miles. I’d call that safe and responsible.

It always amazes me when people toss around the word “Right” in their argument for … well, for anything. Gun rights, women’s rights, students’ rights, union rights … like they have a right to do whatever they please and find somewhere in the Constitution to defend it. And there are a lot of guaranteed rights in the US Constitution. But in each case there are also qualifiers and limitations. Rights are guaranteed. Unregulated license is not.  We are a nation obsessed with the Rights without bearing the Responsibilities.

Now I’m not going to say we should or should not repeat the Second Amendment, although I will say before anybody tries to use the Second Amendment as a justification for killing 19,000 people this year, they really need to see a good psychiatrist.

Sorry, no cute picture for this post. I couldn’t seem to put one together to celebrate so much death.