Our Maniacal Gun Society

I saw a young father yesterday with two little girls and thought that the young man must be a good father. Then as they passed I saw the bold yellow text on the back of the young man's black t-shirt, Stay calm, carry guns. I wasn't shocked but it drove home the concept of America's arrested development.

Again and again we've witnessed the horrific carnage brought about by gun violence, whether it's road rage or just plain enough rage to push someone over the edge over the injustices and inequities of society. Heartbreak is the ultimate result, deep and lifelong heartbreak that one never quite conquers.

T-shirts like these imply that more firepower is the answer, that the Second Amendment must be upheld so that believers can carry guns to church, complete with 100-round magazines for their assault rifles   in the pickup truck gun rack.

The NRA is squarely to blame. I once respected this organization. Now it is replete nutty ultra-conservatives reciting the mantra, You can take my guns when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers. Gun ownership, and by that I refer to concealed handguns, and weapons of war is crazy. There is no guarantee that the person standing next to you in a waiting line in a restaurant is a stable, armed person. No guarantee that the person living across the street does not have a killing machine with hundred-round clips.

Wayne LaPierre, of the NRA asserts that more guns will bring domestic peace. He advocates armed guards in schools as well as armed teachers. That's like saying that more alcohol will make an alcoholic sober. He stirs up fear against the government and fear that people need firepower during a natural disaster. Fear is his mantra. I can't believe he has an M.A. from Boston College!

The America I grew up with respected the law, respected education and the rights of others. We led the world in education, manufacturing, scientific research, mathematical skills and literacy, intellectual curiosity, pursuit of the arts and in available medical care.

Now we lead the world in violence. Our educational system, once, the world-leader is now a distant fourteenth. Now academics are displaced by  patriotic bluster and the idea that I will carry a gun because I can. After all this is America! It's not about peace and tolerance of those different from us but it's about personal firepower.

That defines America's collective case of arrested development. The road-warrior, gun carrying macho craziness that is supposed to restore peace and order.

His eye is on the sparrow...?

The title is reminiscent of a George Beverly Shea hymn, declaring God's protection.

Each springtime I will find a baby robin in our backyard and there will be a frantic momma robin in a nearby tree. I've made clumsy rescue efforts only to fail and push the momma to apoplexy.  In a day or so I will find the carcass of the baby, mangled by a feline fiend. It happens every year and it it probably a part of natural selection or the life cycle but I can't help think why God allows such a savage thing.

Makes G. B. Shea's words ring hollow.