The NRA takes down their
facebook page.
Our national sickness expressed itself once again in Connecticut and garnered
national attention. It expressed itself a few weeks ago in Cleveland
Heights as the community met to deal with elementary school kids being forcibly
robbed of school Ipads. No one died but it’s the same issue. Before
that our sick country screamed out in pain through Anthony Sowell in East
Cleveland, Ohio. No one was shot but it’s the same issue.
Just recently again America screamed “I am sick!” through two deaths and 137
unanswered shots fired again in East Cleveland. Trayvon Martin told us we
have a problem some of us are comfortable not listening.
Mixed signals fill the airways with President Obama suggesting that he would do
all with in his presidential power to effect meaningful action as the White
House spokesman was not so quick to commit officially saying, “It’s
complicated.” This clearly suggests there should be no mass sigh of
relief that gun control is handled at the presidential level.
We have to do it, start
anywhere after you start at home in your own head, heart, spirit, and
body. What personal commitments will you, have you made as of today to
perfect your internal world and direct it toward peace, whatever that means to
you?
A few weeks ago Michael Dunn
a 45 year-old gun collector and software engineer overcome by dis-ease felt
obliged to shoot at least 8 shots into a car with unarmed black teenagers
killing one 17 year old because their music was too loud. He was standing
his ground in Florida…
There should be a public
outcry of 1968 civil rights proportions until stand your ground laws in Florida
and elsewhere are change and politicians who support the law are removed from
office and to court room on public endangerment charges. “The
Florida version of the law passed in 2005. While the legislation provides no
clear definition of what constitutes a threat, it allows people to use deadly
force if they feel threatened regardless of whether they can safely leave the
scene,” according to uprisingradio.org. Huh what, regardless of whether they
can safely leave the scene?! More people are going to die and fewer
people will be brought to justice.
A study by John Roman, a
senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, found that Stand
Your Ground laws tend to track the existing racial disparities in homicide
convictions across the U.S. — with one significant exception: Whites who kill
blacks in Stand Your Ground states are far more likely to be found justified in
their killings. In non-Stand Your Ground states, whites are 250 percent more
likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a white person who
kills another white person; in Stand Your Ground states, that number jumps to
354 percent. What else can be done?
Close to home
-
I’ve personally seen all of
the Godfather movies, CSI, my share of Law and Order Criminal Intent, Good
Fellahs, my all time favorite, Revolver and I’m kinda found of mixed martial
arts. The harm I think it has done to me is desensitizing me. It
has not made me violent. I’d say it’s not in me but I think everyone has the
capacity and my past media diet would take exception.
I’ve made a commitment to not
make gratuitous violence a major part of my diet and stopped watching
television over a year ago. Even though I have seen a difference for many years
I have many times made the determination that taking on the violence was worth
it, for instance, like with the movie Revolver; possibly a pure
justification. I’ve changed my language to be more logical and less antagonistic,
more exchange and less confrontation. I strive more to be heard and understood
than to win arguments and make people see my way; respectively I seek to listen
and understand others. I don’t always get it right.
As I direct attention
internally I express it externally through interaction with others, through
writing and through what I support. I’m willing to go out. I will be
asking groups I work with if there is something we can do short term and long
term. I will be asking writers I know what they think they should
do. I will be trying to sustain an effort of some sort for a year.
There have been over 30
shootings since Columbine in 1999. Since 2004 when Mr. Obama took office
he has resisted doing anything about the laws stating enforcing current laws
was what was needed. Now in the face of mounting pressure the president
seems to be reassessing this stance. Part of Australia’s fix was to buy
back guns. What can be done to not only support any effort toward gun reform
but to change the entire cynical malaise of this country?
Make plans, something you can
start doing right now also and then something long range that may take
preparation. Join in with someone some group you may not have to reinvent
the wheel. We need to walk each other toward a peaceful spirit and put pressure
on local and national leaders.
The National
Firearms Agreement of Australia -- reached among the political parties
less than two weeks after a gunman killed 35 people and injured 23 at a
Tasmanian seaside resort -- cut firearm homicide by 59% over the next two
decades and firearms suicide by 74%, the report showed.
The law banned semiautomatic
and automatic rifles and shotguns and put in place a mandatory buy-back program
for newly banned weapons.
The buyback led to the
destruction of 650,000 guns, the Sunshine Coast Daily reported.
That would be like the US destroying 40 million guns. Currently there is
an average of 88 weapons per 100 people according to the Pew Research Center.
Embrace and Assert What We
Already Do More Toward a More Civil Society- things we might consider, a list.
There are so many things that
already happen if we could embrace them more and make them central to our
everyday comings and goings I believe it will change things.
Specific to mass gun
shootings social media mavens replace your profile pic with a no guns sign or
the like once a month for the next year.
You know a blogger or an
opinion maker or someone like a musician who has access to lots of
people? Challenge them to cover gun violence, nonviolence, civil
discourse, a kinder gentler work place or whatever once a month for the next
year.
Are you a community group or
head of a school that could pass out statistics about violence and bullying to
students and parents, show a movie that deals with the issue, make it a family
night? Pass out stats about gun violence in neighborhoods door to door where
resources are limited.
It is better to feel good
than to look good. Many organizations have things in place they could perhaps
turn toward our national illness such as the Cleveland Museum of Art.
They have a program in which you catch your colleagues doing something right
and out side of what their job description says, report it and HR recognizes
them. Could your school or organization adapt and use this program? Find
out more? The Cleveland Museum of Art Director of HR Sharon Reaves; sreaves@clevelandart.org.
List
Random acts of kindness and
Pass it forward. Who can’t do these with a vengeance?
Listen
Practicing patience while
driving
Changing one’s language from
insulting to understanding.
Are there people who think
this is a bunch of nonsense? Sure there are. Let’s get their ideas.
Where do you stand? What are your ideas?
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