IS THIS REALLY THE AMERICA WE WANT

It is said that we are a divided country, and how can one disagree with that?  We have a supposed American self-image:  of being passionate about rights for everyone, of opportunities for everyone, of neighborliness, of kindness and decency, of caring for the weak and vulnerable.  Then we have the images of reality:  of individuals waving guns around in public and frightening people, of manufacturers and their agents wanting to sell their products so badly that they are not only willing but actively supporting the allowing of what is a real and basic right to own guns to morph into chaos and death and lawlessness.

With seventy four (74) separate school shootings in the last year and a half since Newtown, with countless young people killed or injured or traumatized by terror in what should be a safe place, with other shootings in offices and theaters and stores and homes and houses of religion and streets and freeways, we in America have become a nation at war.  Not at war in Afghanistan or Iraq.  Not like the other war-torn countries such as Syria and Libya and Somalia and Nigeria.  But here in America, here in the nation often described as the world’s last best hope.

 

 

And is there anything that ordinary, everyday Americans can do to save our country?  Why, yes, there are many things we ordinary folk can do.  First of all, we can replace, with votes, all the failed members of Congress, both houses, who have sold their souls to the gun manufacturer lobby and refused to write and pass and enforce sensible gun safety laws, to include the removal of military weapons from easy availability.  Secondly, we can demand loud, constant, and non-stop national debate so that the Second Amendment can be honored without this constant flaunting of guns, concealed or unconcealed, in public.  And finally, we can properly celebrate the Affordable Care Act, and make certain that mentally ill people get the help they need, instead of the guns they should not have.

These things are doable.  These things are right.  Doing these things will give us an America we honor and celebrate.  Not doing these things is unthinkable.