Parkland

Guest Essay – Doses Of Reality


POST 1113

It’s a wonder that in the face of our ongoing gun deaths and the forever heartache attached to them that all we can do is pass a limp-wristed gun safety bill that has no chance of protecting any of us.

This stuff is uncomfortably close to my daughter, Amy, and her six kids. She explains here.

Doses of Reality
                         – by Amy Tucker
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It is easy to become caught up in the news when something tragic happens. We look at the ever-constant news feed on our phones for the details and the latest updates. And then  .  .  .  we move on to the next thing. But the individuals who have been directly affected or those close by never get to just move on. They carry the trauma all the time.

In a five-month time span in 2022, there were three incidents that were close by and in 2024 there were two more.

On July 4, 2022, Robert Eugene Crimo III fired his semiautomatic rifle into the crowd at the Highland Park, IL Independence Day parade. He killed seven people and wounded forty-eight more. This happened fifteen minutes from my home. I was standing in the park at our annual pancake breakfast with two of my children. Emergency vehicles began racing past us with their sirens blaring and another one of my children texted me the story of what was going on. I grabbed my children and hurried home.

We later discovered that my dad had been talking to Crimo at a political rally in our town in September 2020. There was a Trump rally and my dad had organized a counter rally. He made a point of talking with Crimo and his friend. That friend was in classes with one of my children. Dad wanted to understand their beliefs. I stood by while they talked and I have a picture of Crimo and my dad on my phone. I have a picture of the Highland Park shooter on my phone. My dad was talking to him!

On August 14, 2022, my son was working at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL.  That night, he was running the carousel, which is at the main entrance. His shift ended at 7:45 PM and he left his post. At 8:00 PM, there was a shooting right there at the main entrance. Three people were injured. By that point, my son was on the way to his car in the parking lot. His friends began texting him that they had to run from their posts and hide. My son missed that shooting by just fifteen minutes.

On November 19, 2022 at 11:56 PM suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich opened fire at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He killed five people and injured nineteen. Six more were injured in the chaos that followed. My son had left Colorado Springs the day before to come home for Thanksgiving. He knows the location of this club and lives nearby. He missed the shooting by just one day.

On February 16, 2024, there was a double homicide in a dorm room in the building next to my son’s dorm in Colorado. This is the same son who left Colorado Springs for Thanksgiving and missed a shooting by one day. For these most recent murders, he missed the shooting by just one building.

The victim had complained several times to the university about this roommate. He and his girlfriend died. A third roommate hid in his bedroom listening to the moaning of the two people who were shot until they died, likely praying for his own life. I had the privilege of being able to stop reading about that event. That young man who hid in his bedroom will forever see that scene and hear those moans replaying in his head.

On September 29, 2024, I was awakened at 3:00 AM by text alerts from my other son’s university indicating that there was a double murder and students needed to take shelter. This was the same son who was present for the shooting at Six Flags.

These are terrifying, senseless, and life-altering events. My family and I are among the lucky ones who get to “move on” from them. We do not have to live with the injuries or the death of loved ones. If I wanted to, perhaps I could forget about these tragedies and not worry about them. The universe has continued to protect my babies and for that I am grateful. But I think that instead this should be a reminder to me and to all of us that there are those who can never forget.

All six of my children have grown up in a world in which they’ve needed to practice lockdown drills in school in case there is an active shooter. Wouldn’t it make more sense to prevent active shootings than to raise children in a world in which we teach them to be scared to be in school?

Moreover, any time I have checked in with them about violence in our world, several have respond with something to the effect of, “I don’t know. I’m not really bothered by it. It happens all the time.” My son in Colorado knew one of the dorm room homicide victims. When I asked him how he was doing, he responded saying, “I’m fine. Another day. Another shooting.” My children are that desensitized to gun violence. That is even more worrisome to me than if they were calling me panicking!

None of my six children likes the world in which I have raised them – none of them. My heart aches from sadness and guilt every time they say this to me. I brought them into this crazy, senseless, anxiety-producing world. They didn’t ask for the world we adults have presented to them.

These five events struck way too close to home. I vividly remember on the night of the Six Flags shooting ranting on the phone to my parents, sheer rage and fear spewing out of me. I was wishing a shooting tragedy on a family member of any politician who refuses sensible gun laws. Perhaps then they would understand the terrible pain and the senselessness and the preventability of it all and it would hit them too close to home for them to ignore it. Of course, I don’t really want such a terrible thing to happen. But I do want them to end their self-serving political dance that allows these much-too-common lethal events.

I’ve had a powerful dose of reality from these experiences. They urge me to remember those who are grieving and hurting – and wonder: How big of a dose of reality do you suppose it will take for the resisters to make changes to protect us all?

Who do you suppose are the “resisters” Amy accuses? Circle all that apply.

1. Second Amendment contortionists who believe they have a right to own any weapon including weapons of war and to carry them to intimidate others

2. Militia puff-ups, patriotism delusionals, who think it’s their right and obligation to attack and take down whatever they think is an oppressive government

3. Politicians who care more about their careers than they do about our children

Reading Assignment

Brooke Harrison was a student at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL on Valentine’s Day 2018. Following the horror that visited that day she penned an essay for ABC News. Listen to her voice, both in her writing and in the video. Listen to what we have allowed to be done to her and to so many others because of our tolerance – our cowardice in the face of the demands of a selfish and angry minority. Listen to a voice that is just like tens of thousands more every year, forced into suffering they do not deserve.

It’s not the vibes and it’s not the polls: it’s the votes. 
Are you registered to vote? Check it out on any of these websites:
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https://www.vote.org/am-i-registerilled-to-vote/

https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration

https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/am-i-registered-to-vote/

“Friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
  • – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016


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    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore, even if that makes them a few bucks more expensive. That will help to keep them your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Five Years Without Valentines


It was five years ago today when Valentines stopped for 17 high schoolers and teachers at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. They were killed by a former student. Apparently, he had issues. Maybe he was full of hatred for others who were doing well and he, not so well. Maybe others were wealthier, so he felt like he was on the bottom of the social totem pole. Maybe he just felt powerless and had to find a way to feel powerful.

Darth Vader told us something about that.

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Feeling powerful is what the Dark Side is all about. It isn’t about justice or fairness. It isn’t about righting wrongs. It is only about feeling powerful for a few moments. It is about holding the power of life and death over others. It is about putting a pitiful band-aid on the desperate, bottomless hopelessness and despair of one’s fear about one’s value. That’s when everything is transformed and the power of the Dark Side becomes known.

The Uvalde shooter knows it. So does the Sandy Hook shooter and the Mother Emanuel AME Church shooter. The Columbine shooters know it, as do the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter and the Buffalo shooter and the Monterey Park shooter. They all know the power of the Dark Side and they loved the feel of it, the smell of it, the taste of it.

Jamie Guttenberg

But people like Fred and Jennifer Guttenberg hate that the shooters know that, because one of those murderers killed their 14-year-old daughter, Jamie, and 16 others that Valentines Day five years ago. She was a dancer. Then suddenly she wasn’t. Now she’s a face for what the Dark Side does and is a placeholder for all the victims of impotent people who find their power by harming or killing others.

Jamie would have been 19 years old now. Maybe she would be a freshman in college. Maybe she would be enrolled at a dance conservatory. We’ll never know and neither will her parents or her brother, Jesse. All because a loser wanted to feel powerful, so he ended all Valentines for all those kids and teachers by going to the Dark Side. And nothing changed to make kids or anyone else safer.

Five years earlier twenty-six first graders – little 6 and 7 year old kids – and staff were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Those kids would be getting their drivers licenses around this time, but of course now they won’t.

That massacre was going to turn the corner, soften the hearts of legislators and break the hold of the gun industry on politicians. It remains baffling that 26 murdered little kids changed nothing.

These are the victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, TX, 5/24/22. The sister of one of the kids who was killed asked, “Mom, what picture will you use for me?

Last year, following the shooting of 21 children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX and the mass murder of grannies at a supermarket in Buffalo, congress at last passed a law to promote gun safety. 193 Republicans in the House voted against it.* The law does some good things. And it’s a pitiful substitute for what we really need. Read the caption to the left.

We still haven’t done what we all know we need to do to stop murderous rampages. We probably won’t do those things until we decide that we love our children so much that:

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we stop allowing an extremist minority (the ones who need guns to feel strong) to control us and our laws;

we stop tolerating massive campaign contributions from the gun industry to power-craving, self-serving politicians;

we stop mouthing platitudes and actually do what’s needed to deal with mental illness.

Until then our kids will continue to do active shooter drills, hiding under their desks, terrified. Some of them will die. And some will be huddled in corners, hoping Mom has a good picture of them for their memorial.

____________________________

Breaking News

As of 12:42AM EST February 14, 3 are dead and 5 are injured, some with life threatening injuries, from shootings the prior evening. This happened on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Police encountered the shooter who then killed himself.

This is one of over 43 shootings just yesterday. So far this year there have been 5,205 shootings, of which 2,235 were homicides and 2,970 were suicides, which are much easier to do with a gun than any other way.

Now we have yet more stopped Valentines.

____________________________

  • * We must dedicate ourselves to crushing the political careers of these greedy cowards, hypocrites – you pick the word – who allow this carnage to happen. They weenie out of accountability, essentially saying, “Hey, I didn’t pull the trigger.” They justify gun ownership for any moron with a few bucks, this on the basis of a fraudulent reading of the Second Amendment and a baseless claim of freedom.
  • They continue to make it so very easy for people to go first to the Dark Side, then to a gun store, then to a school campus to start shooting people to death.
  • Fire the bastards!

____________________________

No post tomorrow. See you Sunday.

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


    Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take a lot of us to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

This Isn’t The Time


Instructions

Study this material. There is a test at the end.

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Click me to view the Gun Violence Archive

I know that this isn’t the time, because after each horrific mass shooting in America Mitch McConnell tells us that yet again. He said that after Sandy Hook. He said that after Parkland. He said that after the Pulse Nightclub and Sugar Land and Mother Emanuel AME Church and Aurora and Poway and Tree of Life Synagogue and El Paso and I’m pretty sure he’s going to say it now, after the Buffalo and Laguna Woods church shootings last weekend.

Yesterday, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), third-ranking Republican in the House, said, “It is not the time to politicize this tragedy,” yet she paid for ads pushing the replacement lie. Just another day in HypocrisyLand.

It seems that it’s never time to talk about doing anything to stop our American massacres. And it’s not because they happen infrequently. In fact, there have been 27 mass shootings this month alone and it’s only the 18th. Actually, we’re pretty good at murdering one another and we’re steadfast in doing nothing to make us safer.

For decades over 80% of Americans – that includes over 72% of NRA members – have wanted strict, universal background checks prior to the sale of any firearm. The vast majority of us want assault weapons to be prohibited. Same for large capacity magazines, bump stocks and both concealed and open carry. How’s that working out for We The Majority?

It was just a short time after those twenty little 6- and 7-year-old kids and their six teachers and staff were slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary School that Wayne LaPierre of the NRA began to insult this country with, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I have to admit that was a most excellent, chest-thumping marketing ploy for selling more guns.

There are way more guns in this country than people, so there must be a lot of good guys with guns. But how many bad guy murderous rampages have been stopped by a good guy with a gun? Can you think of even one? Neither can I.

Can you imagine a good guy with a gun at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in a shoot out with the bad guy as the halls were full of kids between class periods?

I’m not running for office and I don’t care who I upset by saying this:

  1. I want universal background checks before the sale or transfer of any firearm. That includes Grandpa giving his favorite hunting rifle to his grandson. That grandson just might be named Dylann Roof or Nicholas Cruz or  Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold or Omar Mateen or Robert Gregory Bowers or Adam Lonza. He might be mentally ill or he might be a White Supremacist, hate-filled homicidal maniac like the Buffalo murderer. I don’t want that grandson to get his hands on any firearm.
  2. I want assault weapons to be illegal. These are so-called “man guns” with which our over-testosteroned, angry, under-educated, morally deficient people get their “man card reissued.” Yes, that was the advertising for the Bushmaster assault rifle, the murder machine used at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
  3. I want absolutely no large capacity magazines or bump stocks or automatic firearms of any kind to be allowed anywhere. Alternatively, Americans to have the right to own as many muskets and musket balls as they want, just as the Founders intended when they wrote the Second Amendment.
  4. I want all new firearms sold to have an interlock so that only the owner can fire it. That will help to stop the theft of guns and their subsequent use to kill you and me. If technology makes it possible, I want all existing firearms to be retrofitted with that same technology.
  5. I don’t want any civilian walking my streets carrying a firearm, whether concealed or open carried. And I don’t want anyone to have a gun in the passenger compartment of their vehicle, just like we don’t allow open containers of alcoholic beverages in cars. We don’t need homicidal road rage any more than we need drunk drivers.
  6. I want a full semester of civics taught to every 8th grade school kid, whether in public or private school. Then I want every high school senior to take two semesters of civics classes. Graduation should be contingent upon successfully completing those classes. Maybe that will help to establish a sense of responsibility in our young citizens. They might even grow up to be responsible older citizens. That would be a refreshing change for our country.

Until I’m in charge you better make your voice heard. Otherwise, you’ll once again hear McConnell tell us this is not the time to talk about ways to stop the bleeding and the dying. You’ll have to endure chorus after chorus of “thoughts and prayers” from our jellyfish elected officials. You can identify them as those occasionally somber looking people with special lapel pins and who haven’t the courage to sneeze without first getting permission from their Party leaders, from the hate spewers and from the gun crazies.

If you and I don’t stand up and speak up there will be lots more dead fellow citizens who did nothing worse than go to school or go to an outdoor concert or go to church or have the audacity to go grocery shopping while Black.

Test

Answer each question to the best of your ability. If you find yourself stuck on any question, go on to the next one. When you circle back to the unanswered questions, if you find you still need help, you may use the Hint and the Explainers below.

Questions

  1. Why isn’t this already fixed?
  2. How is it possible that our circumstances have become far worse?
  3. What have we become?

    Click for the video – but be prepared with some tissues.

  4. Story Problem:

    On Monday Victor Blackwell of CNN interviewed survivors of the slaughter rampage in Buffalo last weekend. Two women he talked with had been on their way to the Tops supermarket. Their aunt was already there and was killed by that White supremacist gunman. One of the women was entirely distraught and the other was, as she described herself, devastated. Their pain was so palpable that Blackwell could barely keep himself together.

    At last he turned to the camera and to his anchor in the studio and said,

    “I was counting in the car, talking with my producer  .  .  .  I’ve done 15 of these – at least the ones I can count. And we keep having the conversation about Democrats will say guns, Republicans will say mental health, and nothing will change.

    “And I’ll probably do another one this year. Family after family, having nowhere to go with their grief.

    “We’ll get into a political conversation later, but is this the way we’re supposed to live? Are we destined to just keep doing this, city after city? Have we just resigned that this is what we’re going to be?”

    Q. What are your answers for Victor Blackwell?

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Hint

   The answer to questions 1 – 3 (and maybe #4) can be found in one word: Apathy.

Explainers

  1. The behavior we tolerate is the behavior we get.
  2. If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we always got.
  3. Unless something changes, nothing will change.
Joke of the Week

This is humorous, but it’s sadly related in style to our present reality, including our domestic terrorism.

Fox News anchors stole engines #3 & 4 from the right wing of several large airplanes, then blamed it on a left wing conspiracy.

Many thanks to MA for this.

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The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!)

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town vibrant.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Brutal – By The Numbers


Reading time – 3:50; Viewing time – 4:55  .  .  .

I’ve long believed that the hope for the world is our young people. Here are two reasons why I see things that way:

  1. We adults have made the terrible messes we’re in and we steadfastly refuse to do anything to make things better.
  2. Our young people won’t stand for our self-destruction and hypocrisy.

Sure, they’re idealistic, just like you and I used to be – remember? Then life intervened and we started making compromises. We all do. Now we’re at the point where the majority of us tolerate non-stop lying and cheating and stealing. Some of us wring hands over that, but a majority of our citizens and, indeed, a majority of the world, sits in stupefyingly dull states of semi-consciousness, our vision sorely compromised by the complex mess we’ve created. We act as though consequences don’t exist, as though what has been will always be and even as though that would be okay – it wouldn’t be – and as though there is no price for ignoring the startlingly obvious threatening realities all around us.

But our young people aren’t mired in the goo we’ve used to blind ourselves. They see perfectly and clearly what is all around us and they won’t tolerate it. Here are just two examples:

  1. The Parkland kids stood up and called B.S. They continue to push for Never Again and are driving the decades overdue overhaul of our murderous assumptions about gun rights and to push for legislation to begin to stop our free flow of blood.
  2. You saw the beginning of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg’s quest to reverse global warming. She started by sailing to America instead of riding in a fossil fueled airplane. Then she addressed the United Nations and spoke the outrage her generation feels for what we older people have done to their future: “HOW DARE YOU?” she demanded.

These people won’t be denied and they shouldn’t be, because they are going to live – or die – with the consequences we dump on them and they’ll suffer much longer than those of us now raiding the planet for short term gain and those of us who blunder along, oblivious to the realities of the climate changes and the gun massacres that threaten us every day.

To be clear and fair, two generations ago we boomers were like today’s young people. We made “the establishment” end the war in Vietnam, abolish the military draft and lower the voting age to 18. Then we became what we are now, an obstacle to meeting our existential challenges.

This is brutal talk – I get that. But our condition is increasingly brutal and we can’t afford more exercises in self-sabotage. So, I’ll tell you what we need to do in a simple 3-step formula:

  1. Identify and work for candidates for all elective offices who think young, act young and aren’t burdened by self-destructive legacy mindsets, because we can’t solve 21st century problems with 19th and 20th century thinking.
  2. Vote for those candidates. And make sure others do, too – your buds, your family, your FaceBook friends, co-workers, casual acquaintances, people sharing the elevator with you, the cashier at the supermarket, the dog walkers, bicycle riders, joggers, walkers and shufflers in your neighborhood – make sure all of them vote for these right-thinking candidates.
  3. Once they’re in office, dog their tracks to ensure they’re doing what we need them to do. No back-sliding. No wimping out. This is no time for cowardice.

Does that sound like a lot of work? Well, citizenship is work. But what is at stake is survival. Don’t believe me?

  1. Ask any of the survivors of Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School, or the Tree of Life Synagogue, or the Gilroy Garlic Festival, or Columbine High School, or the Orlando night club, or Sandy Hook Elementary School, or Gabby Giffords.
  2. Ask the people living in the squalor of what’s left of the Bahamas or, for that matter, Puerto Rico, or the survivors of the Thousand Oaks fires, or the people in Houston whose homes are now submarines, or the people in Miami Beach whose streets are flooded even when it’s not high tide.

We are in a fight for survival, and refusing to fight is not an option. And really, a little political action just isn’t all that hard to do.

We can do this. Now, let’s get to work.

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Ed. Note: I don’t want money or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. So,

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

NOTES:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
    2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling or punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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