By Ken Zino
It’s time to take action to protect our children and ourselves from the Gun Lobby.
Journalists are not immune to trauma, especially ones covering disasters – man-made or natural. It is with a heavy, wounded heart that I have been contemplating Ulvade and how we continue to endure such mass murders. However, my heart is not broken and it’s time to use the full human heart and our brains to address what is in my view our single most dire public health problem. Sure, the news about the killings is still developing. There is a glimmer of bipartisan cooperation in the House and Senate to do something, or make it look like Congress is doing something until it bumps up against the Senate filibuster.
No matter. Let’s act now.
I have a personal, glancing experience with firearms in a place they don’t belong. It happened when my daughter's high school was locked down and the kids sent home when a shell from a weapon was found inside the school, near the students’ lockers.
While this was going on, a public relations professional for the automotive industry was touting himself on Facebook as an NRA member. When I confronted him, he repeated the organization’s slogan, without a trace of human emotion; “Proud to be a member.”
I was far luckier than other parents in Michigan. That anguishing episode only lasted hours, but by then my tolerance of the NRA was long gone. This episode occurred years-upon-years ago, when the NRA was proudly fighting a ban on bullets that could pierce ballistic vests used by law enforcement.
Should be selling weapons of war to anyone?
Of course not.
Should we doing background checks and mental health monitoring as we do in other areas, i.e., a pilot's or driver’s, or commercial driver’s licenses, which can require a medical examination and random drug testing?
Of course.
What political organizations who support the majority of Americans in favor of gun control do is run ads through the midterms against all the members of Congress who are running pro-gun or NRA endorsement commercials. These ads should juxtapose pictures of gun violence victims, including children, if the survivors are willing.
All this to ensure background and mental health checks, and tougher, much tougher gun laws. If you want a military weapon, join the National Guard and prove that you are mentally and physically qualified to use one. Until then, the weapons of war should stay with the armed forces, not the forces of evil.
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On the Gun Control Debate
(MON 5/30/22)
In center column analysis we describe our panic over ex-President Trump’s NRA convention speech and what it might mean for the future of our democracy.
In the right column, our pundit-at-large, Stephen Macaulay examines what the NRA convention is trying to sell.
Whether you are left or right, moderate or MAGA or progressive, we want to hear your opinion. Keep it civil and respectful, and please tell us in the subject line whether you consider yourself “right” or “left.” Email us at editors@thehustings.news or leave a comment in one of these three columns.