Saturday, December 15, 2012

Slaughter of the Innocents In Connecticut

i am really having a hard time dealing with what happened in Connecticut yesterday.  Not so much that a strange, perverted young person would think that this is the right answer to his problems ..because weirdness comes too easily..but it strikes so close to home. Perhaps, now that i spend so much time and invest so much emotionally in teaching, or perhaps as a grandfather i can feel the almost unendurable agonies of the families of these so-young children who were slaughtered at school.  I simply can not imagine the torment.

But also, it's the unavoidable fact that this happens, with more and more frequency, i might add, over and over again..although arguably this is the worst..20 children..none aged more then 10!!!! simply horrifying.  I can not imagine the mental screw-up that pumps 100 bullets into children.

And it does happen more and more...as people have more and more disposable income, as guns get more and more powerful.  Someone wrote that it is easier to buy a gun than a pet!!
These guns have only one purpose..that is what gets me...they are not for hunting..or even, for self-protection. They are designed and manufactured and MARKETED on their capabilities to kill and maim as many PEOPLE as possible in a very short time..in other words they are madmen's weapons!

I'm not 100% sure that i've ever been in a gun shop..but i think possibly yes, in Texas, or New Mexico..hah!   where else would it be!  But guns are so easily and CHEAPLY available



will this ever stop?  not in my lifetime.       But i hope this President, for whom i've voted and campaigned twice, has the guts to go after the gun lobby but....i doubt it

The USA..the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave...the richest (and luckiest..in terms of natural resources, size, etc) country in the world, the leader of the free world, the #1 SuperPower....and yet its gun-control laws..or more correctly, it's gun-lack of control laws ..make this kind of carnage, oh so easy, oh so frequent. Oh so forgettable..will we remember Newtown, Connecticut in 6 months time? Or when it is repeated in some other place.

The USA is such a mystery to me..despite the fact that i have lived (here) (mostly) for the last 43 years..and i am a US citizen.

It seems to have such a frontier, rugged individual mentality and ..yes, respect for violence. Old movies...Gunfight at the OK Corral, High Noon..later ones..Rambo, Terminator..then the Godfather or Reservoir Dogs.  But that's bullshit..this is an immigrant nation...most families don't go back more than 2-3 generations.


Is it an intellectual problem or an identity problem?


ah, now we come to the hard part...I'm a dual citizen, the UK and the US.

And the UK and the US have a special relationship...a common language, many common traditions, a genuine closeness.


But it is impossible to compare attitudes towards guns and gun-owning and gun-using in the US and the UK.   There is a huge difference.  Yes this happened 10-15 years ago in Dunblane...but legislation tightened and it hasn't happened since.

So if we're cousins across the ocean why are we so different when it comes to guns?

Random thoughts...

The US truly is a mongrel nation and the Founding Fathers arrived/settled/came to prominence when the land/country was mostly unexplored, untamed land (duh...belonging to the North American Indians)

The Founding Fathers were predominantly English...with their own reasons for settling in the Americas.

The country is new, compared to many/most at about 250 years and counting.

 99% of Americans  are of immigrant stock...be it 1, 2, 3, 4. 5, 6 generations old now.    At the time of the American Revolution ..some 250 years ago..the colonies occupied probably about 1/20th of the present USA..and almost everyone who would call themselves Americans were English/British.  The population of the United States of America in 1764 was probably less than one million..i'm too lazy or angry to check  (current is > 300M)...ouf, probably a lot less than 1 million!!

The USA has been populated since then by invited immigrant waves from Europe, Asia..and oops, you're in West Africa, richard ...from West Africa as slaves...and then Europe again, and again..those damn Irish!!

And then 150 years ago..the USA invented modern trench warfare and prisoner of camps..but came back together again as a Federation and abolished slavery....bit late on that weren't we??





the common language misdirects ...the common tradition misguides.

It is inconceivable that what happened in Newtown, CT could happen in the UK ...............or France or Canada or Japan and yet it will happen again here..and over and over again.

Why..for me, it is simply that we will not face up to the truth..that the blood of Newtown is on all lawmakers...and on all our hands for not getting our elected representatives to outlaw owning people-killing weapons.
This American flaw is real, addressable ..and without addressing, a terrible and growing stain on the the American definition/national identity.


Please let's change it.