In the wake of Sunday’s mass killing at a Sikh
temple outside Milwaukee, there’s been quite an international outcry about
American racism and violence; a lot of uproar about our weapon-packing whackjobs
targeting particular religious/ethnic groups. But may I remind you that we the
people have a rich and varied history of non-discrimination when it comes to
mass shootings.
In support of my contention, let me present a
sampling from just the past few years:
July 2012: gunman kills 12, wounds 58 at a movie
theatre in Aurora, Colorado.
January 2011: gunman kills six, wounds 18 (including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) at a mall in
Tucson, Arizona.
November 2009: gunman kills 13, wounds 29 at Fort
Hood, Texas.
March 2009: gunman kills ten (including his mother and four other relatives) across two counties in Alabama.
April 2009: gunman kills 13, wounds four, commits
suicide at an immigrant community center in Binghamton, New York.
February 2008: gunman kills five, wounds 18, commits
suicide at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.
December 2007: gunman kills eight, commits suicide at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska.
April 2007: gunman kills 32, wounds 17, commits suicide at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia.
February 2007: gunman kills five, wounds four at a
mall in Salt Lake City, Utah.
October 2006: gunman kills five Amish girls at a
school in Pennsylvania.
July 2006: gunman kills one, wounds five at the
Jewish Federation in Seattle, Washington.
March 2005: gunman kills nine, wounds seven at Red
Lake, Minnesota.
March 2005: gunman kills seven, wounds four, commits
suicide at a worship service held at the Brookfield Sheraton, Brookfield, Wisconsin
They slaughter in churches, hotels, schools, shopping
malls, military bases, temples, universities, offices, fast-food restaurants, homes, movie
theatres. They target immigrants, tourists, students, politicians, shoppers, grandmothers, babies, close relatives, complete strangers, soldiers, co-workers,
Christians, Jews, Muslims, who-knows-what. Their victims are every color of the
rainbow.
The murderers are soldiers, ex-soldiers, students, unemployed,
immigrants, farmers, city folk, Christians, Muslims, who-knows-what. They shoot and run, shoot it out with the cops, shoot themselves. They give us multiple
reasons or single reasons or no reasons at all for their sprees.
Let me just say that a whackjob with a gun doesn’t
really need a cause to espouse or a specific group to hate; all he (and the examples above were all men) needs is the weapon(s), the ammo, the access and maybe the ability to go to full-auto.
So, back off, world. We are completely
equal-opportunity when it comes to this kind of mayhem. You don’t like who got
shot this time? Wait ten minutes; someone will go after somebody else.
God help us.
I have been a passionate proponent of gun regulation all my adult life, and in the year 2000 I thought reason would finally triumph over the reactionary NRA and its duped membership and deep-pocketed gun sellers. The Million-Mom March seemed to have impressed thoughtful citizens as nothing had before, and I looked forward to a Gore administration that would start repealing and amending the NRA-dictated laws that exempt gun sellers from any regulation at all. Alas, the March was a wakeup call to the NRA as well, and it spent millions painting the March as the preamble to government abrogation of the 2d Amendment. The NRA defeated candidate Gore in his own state, and in other states NRA votes frequently accounted for the Republican majority vote. That experience broke my heart and my will, and it taught most Democratic politicians and officeholders that the NRA is simply to string to be opposed or even slighted. I don't want to lose another election as critical as the 2000 one, and so I have simply shut my mouth and my eyes to the inevitable consequences, like the Colorado and Wisconsin shootings.
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