Seeking Security

                                                 by Kenneth Bagnell

    The mass killing in Orlando will linger in history forever largely because it was such a crazed and deliberate act, motivated by a young man’s perverse hatred for gay people. But there’s many other and subtle social issues that supported it. Mainly it’s the ease with which a disturbed man got his gun and the still loathing of gay people, mainly in the US. In truth, gay people happen to be, around the world, mostly very law abiding. That’s a fact. Moreover many are among our civic leaders at every level. The basic fact is this: the United States is a troubled culture. Actually Donald Trump is an example himself of the trouble. So is his attracting so many people. It’s bizarre and it’s alarming. Just think of Trump if he ever becomes President. It’s truly frightening.

      As for the tragic Orlando incident: one thing is that it’s almost as easy to acquire a gun in the United States as it is to order a martini. This absolutely must be stopped so that a guy with an already dubious police record could not walk into a hardware store and leave with a gun. Right now, as you read this hundreds and hundreds of Walmart stores are passing guns over the counter having asked petty questions such as “have you a criminal record and “are you a fugitive.” If a customer says he’s been convicted he can still beat the rap if he didn’t serve over two years. It’s utterly ineffective. The FBI reports that rejections are rare. (About 100 million checks have been carried out; less than one million were denials. Do the math.)

     The United States has a national cancer and with the dreadful possibility of a fascistic President, the so called “free-world” could be facing an absolutely dreadful future. Consider the current situation, given the gun fanatics’ promotion through the National Rifle Association which actually believes that the answer is more guns to more people including teenagers. Are they crazy? I’m serious. Here are some very basic and accurate statistics from my research:

   * Every year an average of over 100,000 Americans are shot.   

 * Every day an average of 289 people are shot.    

     * Between 2000 and 2010 a total of 335,609 died from gunfire. (That’s more than the population of many cities.) That’s well beyond disgraceful.

      Poor Obama had to take to the lectern once again, to ask for “our thoughts and prayers” and given the number of times he’s had to express regrets over gun massacres, they sound as if he carried recordings, switching them on as required. He’s a good man, no question, probably a good President, but this issue is well beyond the President even if he or she were a political genius. This horror is rooted profoundly in American history and culture, and is thereby a disaster. We should be careful about pointing the finger The National Rifle Association exclusively.

       After all, such associations do not suddenly appear out of nowhere; they need a fertilized soil in which they flourish. It’s tragic, but there’s evidence that a great many citizens, including a lot of Christian fundamentalists have given support to those who resist gun control. They are “with” the gun crowd. This is truly horrible – so-called followers of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, support funding an organization that prefers deadly weaponry over peaceable faith. One example of the proof of this fact is from the U.S.’s Southern Poverty Law Center, a group dedicated to progressive policies in American politics. In a report, written by a lawyer, one of its leaders, says this: “Religious right extremists who have spent most of their energy in recent years vilifying LGBT people or fighting the nation’s culture wars on other fronts have found a new demon to slay: gun control. It might seem odd that those who profess allegiance to the teachings of Jesus Christ would be so vociferous about making sure that Americans have continued unfettered access to assault rifles. But in the wake of the massacre of school children in Connecticut which ignited the most heated debate about gun control in this country in a decade, some of the religious right’s most rabid voices are joining the fight.”

     In support of that view we should also note that the best known evangelist in the United States today is rabidly anti-Islamist. Sadly to say I mean Billy Graham Junior, son of the father of the same name. He’s been known to call Islam wicked and evil. The online magazine, Alternet, (an award winner which stresses human rights and social justice) reports that over the past few years Graham carved out a grim reputation. As Alternet puts it: “Graham is a mean-spirited Christian nationalist and one of the most consistent voices arguing that Christians in this country are persecuted victimized and excluded from the public square.” (He’s spouting nonsense.) Alternet’s editorial continues: “Over the past few years he has established a well-deserved reputation as one of the United States leading religious based Islamaphobes. For example he vigorously opposed Duke University’s right to allow the Muslim call to prayer. He is reported to have written this nonsensical claim: “As Christianity is being expelled from the public square and followers of Islam are raping, butchering and beheading Christians and Jews and anyone who doesn’t submit to Sharia Islamic law, Duke is promoting this (Muslim call to prayer) in the name of religious pluralism.” Question: what’s wrong with religious pluralism?  He continues: “I call on donors and alumni to withhold support (from Duke) until this policy is reversed.” How’s that for small-mindedness?

     In any case, all of us should be now looking toward the future and hope, as Hilary Clinton constructively pointed out yesterday afternoon: “We must make stopping dangerous lone wolves coming to our country a top priority.” She said this should be tackled by “stemming the flow of Jihadists and strengthening the defense mechanisms in the United States.” That’s both complex to create and challenging to maintain. Naturally. It recalls for me a line on assuring national wellbeing from President Calvin Coolidge back in the 1920s. “It means,” he said, “looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.”

 Past blogs are archived on my website: your comments are welcome there: www.kennethbagnell.com.