How many more, you ask? We have an answer.

@nbcnews

A mere thirty one days ago, in the wake of a horrific terrorist attack (unlike The Megalomaniac in Chief and his gutless compatriots, I will say a white man is capable of committing acts of terrorism and should be called out as such) in Las Vegas wherein a lone gunman killed 59 people and injured nearly 600 in a matter of minutes, I said there would be another one.

Today, that other one, yet another terrorist attack on American soil, occurred in a church in a San Antonio suburb. I'd like to be outraged that this happened at a church. I'd like to be outraged that churches, which by their vary nature are sanctuaries of peace, are not exempt from such horror. I'd like to be outraged but we've accepted that elementary schools and the children within are fair targets and that the most super-effective solution is to arm teachers. I'd like to be outraged but we've decided that being massacred is one of the potential acceptable risks of going out to the movies. I'd like to be outraged but we've accepted that if you're out at the club with your friends, getting mowed down like an enemy combatant is just an unpleasant downside.

Our political leaders, and I use that term in the loosest possible way, have already come out wringing their hands and calling for prayers. They are also calling for calm and that this is certainly not the time to talk action or politicizing what has happened. Interestingly, just a few days ago when a brown man, a Muslim, ran down eight people in New York, these same leaders were screaming for extreme vetting and the death penalty before the first bodies had been removed from the scene. Double standards are fun, aren't they?

The fact that the twenty six (so far) people who were slaughtered this afternoon were in church praying when they were killed will change nothing. The NRA will continue to pay its blood money to politicians who will gladly accept it. Apparently that cushion of cash makes it easier for them to sleep once they utter their somber platitudes about thinking and praying about the victims.

The bottom line is that nothing will change. We are destroying ourselves and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

How Many More? A Painful Redux

@abcnews.com

I don't make a habit of republishing old posts here in the Den. I do so with one exception and that is in honor of September 11th. So it's got to be something pretty momentous to get me to republish a post. I think that 58 people slaughtered by a lone terrorist (because that is EXACTLY what he was), carrying a multitude of automatic weapons worthy of an elite army assault team, seems pretty momentous to me.

I published the post below on 3rd October 2015 in response to yet another school shooting that left ten people dead. What gutted me earlier today when I reread the post is that I couldn't even remember where that shooting occurred. That's how common these shootings are and how desensitized we've become to them. Here we are, nearly two years later to the day, living the horror of the worst mass shooting in the United States, for now. There will be another one, a worse one because we will continue to tolerate this madness.

We can bang on all we want about when is the "right time" to talk about gun control. Once this country decided it was super cool with the slaughter of twenty children, some of whom were only a couple of years older than my grandson is today, then the gun control debate was over.

Our leaders will wring their hands, offer up their prayers, tweets and platitudes, and then do absolutely nothing. And soon enough, I'll republish this post, with more editorial comment in italics, with the occurrence of an event with an even higher body count. And nothing will change.

I'm sad. I'm angry. I'll let my legislators know where I stand on this. I will make my voice heard even though I fear that we are going to continue to choose to let these things happen.

3rd October 2015
Another day, another mass shooting here in the United States. Ten dead, including the perpetrator, in another senseless mass shooting at yet another school.

How many more of these incidents will we tolerate? Apparently our tolerance knows no bounds.

Another shooter who fits an all too familiar refrain. Loner, entrenched in the Internet and all that lurks within its infinite, murky well, fascinated by other similar murderous acts. And yet those that know these shooters all say, "I'm shocked." "Never saw it coming."

How many more of these incidents will we tolerate? See above.

Our elected representatives all follow the same script in the wake of this madness. They take to social media and declare their sympathy for the victims and their willingness to pray for those who have been lost. This is their 'action.' Kudos on your hollow actions. Thanks for taking the time to send a tweet. Call me crazy, but I don't see how a Tweet is an act of absolution for your collective cowardice and unwillingness to address this insanity.

How many more of these incidents will we tolerate? See above.

I guess it's easier to fixate on what a former child star turned epic skank is not going to wear when she hosts "Saturday Night Live" tonight than how we can address this madness. See the pregnancies of the Kardashian trollops.

I guess it's easier to play a parlor game of "What Will The Megalomaniac Donald Say Today" than to address the mental health crisis in our country that is a key driver of these killings. I. Can't. Even.

I guess it's easier to ignore the fact that our children are being taught how to survive a mass shooting from their earliest days in elementary school than it is to question why anyone should be allowed to have a full-on weapons depot in their basement.

How many more of these incidents will we tolerate? This is now a rhetorical question.

Given our track record, there seems to be no limit. When will we tire of it? Apparently never. When will we do something to make it stop? We'll see if the next one finally does it.

"This is a political choice that we make, to allow this to happen every few months in America." President Obama

50 Dead

Photo Credit: Joe Burbank / Orlando Sentinel

50 Dead

50 People Killed

50 lives snuffed out by the cold brutal efficiency of an AR-15 rifle and a handgun in the hands of, and no, I do not think it's too soon to assign a label, a madman. Only a madman could perpetrate such a crime.

The slaughter of those 50 people was not the only crime committed last night. Perhaps the greater crime has been our nation's inability to take any action whatsoever to prevent these crimes from happening again. This ongoing macabre parade of mass death at the hands of gunmen happens nowhere else in the world, except for the gang at ISIS. Ironically, we are trying to exterminate them. But, hey, take action here at home? Don't be silly.

What is it going to take for these mass killings to end? In considering the history of just a few of these, because they are too numerous to count or sadly even remember, it seems like they have touched all corners of our American life. For your consideration:

Where people go to scarf down fast food: McDonalds, San Ysidro, California
Where people send their little ones to elementary school: Sandy Hook Elementary
Where people send their teens to school: Columbine High School
Where people send their kids for higher learning: Virginia Tech
Where people go for some movie escapism: Century 16 Theaters, Aurora, CO
Where people go to study scripture and to pray: Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, SC
Where people go for a night out: Pulse, Orlando, Florida

Notice that not one of those places was an active war zone where one knowingly understands the risks of what lies ahead. The only danger that the people eating at McDonalds that day in 1984 was from the fat in the fries, not from a crazed killer. Not one child at Sandy Hook expected to be slaughtered that morning by a madman with an assault rifle. Not one person seeing that "Batman" movie that night in Aurora knew they were at risk of being killed by yet another madman armed with an assault rifle.

The assault rifle, in all its forms, has played an outsized role in these killings. But according to the NRA and their ominously named Institute for Legislative Action, assault rifles are harmless. Because target practice. Read for yourselves:

The AR-15, the firearm that gun control supporters most often call an “assault weapon,” is the most popular rifle on the market today, accounting for one-fourth of all rifles manufactured in the United States. AR-15s are commonly kept for protection, they’re the most widely used rifle in marksmanship competitions and formal training, they’re widely used for recreational shooting, and they’re commonly used for hunting. Americans acquire roughly a million new AR-15s every year, in addition to large numbers of comparable semi-automatic rifles.

I could maybe get on board with that statement if it read with a little bit more of reality in it. Something like this:

The AR-15, the firearm that gun control supporters most often call an “assault weapon,” is the most popular rifle on the market today, accounting for one-fourth of all rifles manufactured in the United States. AR-15s are commonly kept for protection from imagined threats, they’re the most widely used rifle in marksmanship competitions and formal training, they’re widely used for recreational shooting of humans, and they’re commonly used for hunting innocent people. Americans acquire roughly a million new AR-15s every year, in addition to large numbers of comparable semi-automatic rifles.

Chris Murphy, Democratic Senator - Connecticut, unloaded this morning on his Congressional cohorts, rightfully calling them out for their complicity in this latest assault:

"This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America - nowhere else.

Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening 

silence. This doesn't have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end - if

Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing - again."

He's right. 100% right. These mass murders will continue to happen until our elected representatives actually do something to bring an end to the madness. But I'm not going to hold my breath. Their record of intransigence and epic 'do-nothingness' is unmatched. 

In the meantime, what's happened to our humanity? We have completely lost sight of our humanity. Once you've lost respect for humanity, I would imagine that it's very easy to no longer see the child at the end of that gunsight as child but a target. Or the gay man as nothing more than something that needs to be eliminated. Or the black woman grasping her Bible as nothing more than an enemy.

Yes, guns are a huge problem and an ugly issue to even try and solve. But how are we going to solve for this issue of humanity? 

We've got to figure out how to save ourselves. Fast.

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This has to stop.

When is it enough already?

When will NO finally mean NO?

When will we, men in particular, finally stand up and say, "This has got to stop."

These are just some of the questions I've been pondering in the wake of the horrific Stanford rape case. This case has drawn, and rightfully so, a harsh and unforgiving light on just how far we have gone off the rails in terms of our humanity. It has lain bare the hideous rape culture that exists in our nation. It has further exposed a pulsating vein of racism and misogyny that has existed in our country for far too long. It has to stop.

Our rape culture has got to stop. #TheStanfordRapist took no responsibility for his crime, blaming it instead on alcohol and promiscuity. I'm curious to know who put the gun to his head and forced him to drink that night. I'm curious to know who put the gun to his head and forced him to rape that unconscious woman. But the culture of rape allowed him to take no responsibility. His father, in defending his son, talked about the crime his son committed as an "action" which would have lifelong consequences for his son. Again, thanks to the culture of rape, the father never mentioned the victim nor what she will deal with for the rest of her lie. As Pastor John Pavlovitz wrote in his brilliant response to the father of #TheStanfordRapist, "There is no scenario where your son should be the sympathetic figure here. He is the assailant. He is the rapist." When are we going to stop with this foolishness of the accused being the sympathetic one?

The one for whom sympathy should have been abundant, the victim, was instead blamed for what happened to her. Much like Pavolovitz' statement that there is no scenario where the rapist is the sympathetic one, there is not.one.single.scenario where a woman is to blame for being raped. Not one. Yet, victims of rape are forced time and again to justify why they shouldn't have been raped. A woman should never fear that reporting a rape will get her tossed out of her university. My own alma mater has a long way to go to repair the damage done there. Is it any wonder why this heinous crime is so underreported? Who would want to sit in front of a jury and have to explain why your actions, like walking to your car alone, weren't the reason why a man was compelled to rape you? It is insanity. How is it that we have accepted for far too long that woman is not always the victim?

The judge in this miscarriage of justice clearly forgot that #TheStanfordRapist was not the victim. He saw a privileged white young man who got carried away after an evening of drinking. Had it been a man of color, it would have been a far different outcome. Across our country, young men of color accused of similar crimes are doing life sentences. #TheStanford Rapist will do six months prison time. He should be doing years. When will we stop ignoring the blatant racism that infects our judicial system?

Our judicial system failed the victim of #TheStanfordRapist in epic ways. That failure is a reflection of the misogyny that is rife in our country. When the Republican nominee for President, who in addition to his unbridled bigotry, racism, and incessant lying, is an open misogynist, with inexplicable support from some women, can verbally assault women without recrimination, our tolerance of misogyny is an irrefutable, disgusting fact.

If nothing else, the horror of #TheStanfordRapist may be the turning point for us as a nation. It may be a slow pivot, but it feels like it's finally enough. NO meant NO yesterday, today, and forever. I have so many women in my life - starting with my wife, my two daughters, and an eight month old granddaughter. What an amazing thing it would be if she could grow up knowing rape culture was not a thing and that misogyny was a thing of the past.

If that's going to happen, it's time to put an end to it - the culture of rape, the misogyny. It is time that we stand up and say, "This has got to stop." We just can't say it. There's got to be action. Take action in your family, your community, your sphere of influence. Make it stop. Women deserve it. Humanity deserves it. Make it stop.
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