My youngest son will be six in January. But that’s not the only reason these recent
killings disturb me as much as they do.
I was equally shocked, and moved, by the attack at the premiere of the
Batman film in Aurora, Colorado, earlier this same summer. So I think my feeling on this matter goes far
beyond imagining the ways in which tragedies like this can ruin—and end—my own
life, or that of my loved ones. In many
ways the feeling is not personal.
And the thing is, the deep deep sorrow cannot be directly
merely against the assassin. What he did
was horrific, but he not only caused the horror, but was also consumed by
it. And I’m not referring to the fact
that he killed himself as well. That’s
the least of it.
It seems to me that if we fail to react in a reasonable
and significant way to this tragedy, we will only be permitting other similar tragedies
to continue to occur. The answers may
not be easy, but if we don’t even ask the questions—and keep asking them long after the front pages of our information
sources are concerned with something else—nothing will change.
That’s what bothers me so much about the posture of the
NRA and their supporters, and all those who treat the 2nd Amendment
as if it were sacred, and inviolable.
Their attitude, and their actions, continue to demonstrate that they don’t want anything to change, that
they want all our lives to be ruled by an attitude which is perhaps
comprehensible at a time when this nation had only recently won its
independence, in large part thanks to the ability of the patriots to successfully
engage in guerilla warfare. But that
time is long past, at least in this country.
Now, ironically, we are the ones fighting guerilla wars abroad. And yet, at home, some of us cling to the
notion that we have the right to be armed without limit, in order to defend
ourselves, just as our 18th century forefathers did.
Unfortunately the technology has changed, considerably,
immensely. There is no comparison, when
it comes to the damage that can be inflicted in a very short period of time,
between what the New York Times calls “a semiautomatic rifle that is similar to
weapons used by troops in Afghanistan,” and a Colonial musket. And yet the attitude that established every
American’s right to possess and use one of those muskets has become fossilized.
This, I think, is a big part of the real problem.