I Am Angry

I am angry. 

I am very angry. There has been yet another mass shooting. Two gun-toting criminals -- both juveniles -- opened fire on a crowd of some 1,000,000 people gathered in Kansas City, Missouri, to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory. Nine of the victims are children.

In other news, three police officers in Washington, D.C., were shot while trying to serve an arrest warrant on a suspect in an animal cruelty case.

And in Los Angeles Country, four people were shot and killed in apparently random killings.

So this is the state of America in 2024.

We have reached the point where it isn't safe to be in any large public gatherings. It isn't safe to go to the grocery store. It isn't safe to go to the movies. It isn't safe to attend church or synagogue. It isn't safe to attend school. It isn't safe to go to the mall. It isn't safe to walk down the street or to drive anywhere. 

The bottom line is, it isn't safe any place in America.

The state in which I live, New Mexico, has a couple of new laws aimed at the gun violence. The first will impose a 7-day waiting period on anybody wanting to buy a gun. This will allow time for the federally required background check to be completed. The bill as originally introduced would have mandated a 14-day wait, but after lots of screaming about their Second Amendment rights, the 7-day was a compromise both sides agreed to. 

The second piece of legislation bans firearms in or near polling places and during early voting. The only exceptions are for law enforcement and those with concealed carry permits.

Will these pieces of legislation, which our governor has said she will sign, actually make an impact on gun deaths in our state? That remains to be seen, but guns are so readily available on the streets that it doesn't seem likely. Our governor has declared gun violence to be a public health emergency, which it definitely is nationwide.

Gun violence is a serious matter, taking the lives of nearly 19,000 Americans in 2023. That number does not include suicides. Gun-related deaths dropped for the second consecutive year, but the number of deaths by firearms remains appallingly high.

Firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teenagers, with more than 1,600 deaths every year. Is this the world in which we want our children to live, with active shooter drills part of their education?

My father had rifles used solely for hunting squirrels and rabbits. I don't know that he kept them locked away, but I know they were not anyplace we kids could have found them. We were never tempted to pull out a gun and kill people.

Clearly mental health issues play a large role in gun violence, so that issue needs to be addressed in any discussion of gun deaths. But not all shooters have mental health issues. Some are just plain evil.

There were 800 armed law enforcement officers at the Chiefs' parade and celebration. Eight hundred armed officers on scene, and still they were unable to prevent the shooting. So much for the "only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun" theory. And who brought down one of the shooters? An unarmed civilian who tackled the guy with a gun and, with the help of other unarmed civilians, brought the guy down.

It's pretty clear that America care a lot more for its guns than for the safety and lives of its citizens. 

I have no answers to gun violence, but it's blatantly obviously our government's do-nothing-but-offer-thoughts-and-prayers to the victims of gun violence and their families is not enough.