Racism is an ugly business. Mix racism with firearms, and it grows deadly. The recent shooting in Charleston was still another horror. I want to say something about what I understand happened and my feeling about it. I don’t feel good about it.
The shooting in Charleston of the nine parishioners including their pastor horrified the nation. It’s as as if we had learned nothing from the shootings at Virginia Tech, the Amish Schoolhouse, Columbine, Newtown and a score of others where so many innocent people were violated by the calculated hate-filled violence, facilitated by easy access to firearms. There is no question but that guns do make it easy for some disenchanted soul without a conscience to make his bloody statement to the world.
To his credit, in a very unpopular stance, President Obama took the issue head on. He made an aggressive response, treading where angels have feared to tread. He spoke: “We don’t have all the facts but we do know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.” He unapologetically raised the subject of guns. He also cited Dr. King’s words that such hate crimes were a demand to “substitute courage for caution” and urged people to ask not just who did the killing but “about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.”
The system and way of life that the President alluded to is amply demonstrated by the NRA and the powerful political and economic influence it has had over public policies where not only guns are involved, but votes. Originally the NRA was founded to practice and improve marksmanship. It was a recreational organization. Its agenda has been radically altered: now it campaigns, along with the arms industry, to promote gun ownership for personal protection. Wayne LaPierre, the president of the NRA, after the Newtown slaughter announced his philosophy passionately by publically stating that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The claim is cute, colorful and filled with male bravado, but it’s a toxic formula for establishing a balanced social order. Social stability is jeopardized if it depends on fears of retribution because your neighbor has a gun and if you offend him, you’ll be shot. This turns a democracy into an armed camp.
If we as a nation are not embarrassed now about how many of our elected officials are not confronting what’s obvious about the crisis (the availably of guns), we have no conscience. I cringe after reading some of the comments following the incident. For fear of losing conservative votes, politicians are reluctant to address the danger of gun availability in the public arena. Many political figures offer pious cliché’s of solidarity with the victims by smooth words but steer clear of commenting on the real and present danger that easy gun access is creating.
Take for example how the fear of incurring the wrath of the gun lobby leads influential people to be as non-committal as possible in directly commenting on gun related abuses. I thought one of the most shameful comments came from a post issued by NRA board member, Charles Cotton, who stated that he thought the church’s pastor was responsible for the massacre. How? “Eight of his church members, who might be alive if he [the pastor] had expressly allowed members to carry handguns, are dead.” Could Mr. Cotton be so witless he could see no contradiction in his thought of arming prayer groups? Governor Perry of Texas, basking in the light of the new legislation passed allowing students to carry handguns on college campuses offered this assessment of what happened in Charleston. “An accident.” Commenting on the president’s call to face the problem of guns he says, “ He doesn’t like for Americans to have guns, and so he uses every opportunity, this being another one, to basically go parrot that message.”
It seems to me that there’s a pervasive fear of confronting the emerging culture that our president alludes to, that social problems are solved only when the good guys carry guns. Yes, there are loners, malcontents, political radicals, conspiracy theorists and other nut jobs ready to take up a cause. The common denominator in all of it, however, is their easy access to the gun and no one, especially conservatives wooing their constituencies for votes, dare speak against it.
Ironically the Charleston massacre called forth a stunning example of the meaning of faith. Survivors of victims, grief-stricken and still in shock from their loss, drew deeply from the moral reserves still available to them and prayed for the troubled young man who had killed their loved ones. I think these are the people with the kind of moral fiber that Americans desperately need to emulate and not those who with power and money extol firepower as America’s chief virtue.
Julie Lowe says
Well spoken, I agree wholeheartedly. Thank you, George for stepping out on that plank!
Paulette Florio says
Thank you George for pointing to the truth of the matter. I appreciated your article very much. My sentiments exactly.