More School Shooting Gun Deaths

 This week's news has been dominated by the Nashville Convent School shooting deaths of three nine year old children and three adults.  The 28-year-old shooter was killed by police at the site fourteen minutes after receiving the 911 call about the active shooter.

There are no signs today that the incident will spur changes in laws or enforcement to address mass shootings.  There have been over 100 such mass shootings in 2023 to date.  There were reported to be 648 shootings in 2022.  More than 44,000 gun deaths in the U.S. in 2022.

President Biden claimed he could not do anything more than what he has done about gun violence.

Is it a cop-out to say that the problem cannot be solved without cooperation from gun owners?  This is what I believe.  There are millions of gun owners in the country.  It seems they are in such numbers that members are from all walks of life and political persuasions, even if the majority are of some category.  For the sake of argument, assume the vast majority of gun owners are white, male, and conservative.  Does this assumption help in making progress on this issue.  No.  

Implicit in asking about the gun owning community is my belief that meaningful progress on gun violence can only come with a drastic change in the availability of guns.  Statistics on gun violence around the world clearly show the correlation of gun deaths with gun ownership.  Americans want to believe that our country can change to address challenges because most people accept the rule of law, and laws are created through majority rule legislative action.  But in this case, gun ownership has taken on the status of being sacrosanct and inviolate.  Court interpretations of the Constitution have reinforced the notion that the state cannot restrict gun ownership.  

Groups dedicated to reducing gun violence have taken various approaches to enact meaningful change.  Perhaps each step brings a change closer.  The country has made big changes in other areas of injustice, so I suppose there is always hope.  I believe that change can come only with a drastic change in the electorate that delivers the following:

1. A judicial system that rejects the assertion that gun ownership is a Constitutionally guaranteed right.

2. An electorate that holds in strong contempt the idea of wide-spread gun ownership.

3. A cultural realization that gun violence is among the most evil and anti-American activity imaginable.

4. A cultural understanding that gun ownership puts the gun owner at higher risk of gun violence rather than lower risk.

5. Shaming and ostracizing of gun advocates on the level of other strong taboos (i.e., incest, child pornography).

If my sense about the above is close to accurate, I will not expect to see change in my life time.

Irrationality on the Rise?

 Today's NY Times column Global Transformation of Christianity there are depressing facts about a world trend that should not have surprised me: there is a significant part of the non-western "majority world" turning to Evangelical Christianity.  "Statistics vary but even conservative estimates guess there were around 98 million evangelical Christians globally in 1970. Now, there are over 342 million."  World population in 1970 was 3.7 billion, and it is about 7.8 billion today.  So while total population doubled, Christianity increased 3.5 fold.  True, the percentage of Christians can be computed to have been 2.6% in 1970 and now is 4.4%, only a small minority.  

Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades – an average annual growth rate of 1.5% for Muslims, compared with 0.7% for non-Muslims. If current trends continue, Muslims will make up 26.4% of the world’s total projected population of 8.3 billion in 2030, up from 23.4% of the estimated 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.

Initially, the numbers made me feel anxious about the future.  I see the growth of people searching for an answer to their 'spiritual longing', and I can hear the pastors of my childhood filling that need with the nonsense of Christianity.  Even more horrifying in a way are the legions of people deciding the Quran is the true path.  To my way of thinking, the religious person prefers simple, empty mantras to both their own direction and the world's direction.  Those of us who believe in rational thought as a guiding principle rather than a mystical superhuman deity fear we will need to placate fanatics and suppress our disdain for directives that originate in thousands year old ignorance.  For the religious, trust is placed among those who have professed the same faith.  

Will we have a world turning more and more to prayer as the answer to problems?  Will the grifters of the evangelical movement rule?  Allowing for both Evangelicals and Muslims to be 90% sincere (that is, the vast majority of the members are sincere believers), why should the trend of growth concern me?

Truly, what do I care if anyone prays five times a day or believes angels help them?  Why should I judge anyone for any reason?  If I object to proselytization, am I not a tad hypocritical because I want people to conclude, like me, that prayers are futile, the afterlife is a falsehood, and religious beliefs are stupid?  

I need to think hard on this topic.  It does not take much imagination to project the futility of my present attitude.  It seems certain that much of my misery or dissatisfaction is self-inflicted.  If true, there are no changes in the world that would relieve my frustrations.  It could be a thought akin to the philosophy of Buddhism.  Suffering is an internal rather than an external force.  Nothing in the external can address the internal cause.  Self awareness is key to limiting suffering, and insofar as suffering diminishes happiness, effort should be directed towards the internal suffering.  

Terrorism from Within

 Ex-President Trump absconded with 'Top Secret' and other 'Classified' documents in clear violation of law and his oath of office.  The only authority to be able to call out the crimes are Federal institutions.  Thus, Trump ends up in the cross-hairs of multiple investigations about the scope and nature of his crimes.  As the FBI, the NSA, and Congress pursue him, Trump is raising money and regaining strength by tapping into anti-authoritarian sentiment held by conservative anti-government sects.

In an NY Times op-ed, Michelle Cottle links Trump's tactics with the anti-federal government politics of recent American history. Ruby Ridge is the short-hand reference to a 1992 confrontation between U.S. Marshall Services and a family in Idaho who defied Federal authorities, resulting in a shoot-out and killing of a U.S. Marshall and several members of the family. The incident was cited as the inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing of a Federal building in 1995 by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Cottle's piece links other incidents of defying Federal authority,

    
    Going back still farther, federal troops played a prominent role in dismantling the segregated South. In his 1963 inaugural address, Gov. George Wallace of Alabama delivered his infamous pro-segregation rallying cry and whined that after the Civil War, the South was “set upon by the vulturous carpetbagger and federal troops, all loyal Southerners were denied the vote at the point of bayonet, so that the infamous illegal 14th Amendment might be passed.” Even now, plenty of white Southerners — the aggrieved heart of today’s Republican Party — cling to their sense of being oppressed by highhanded federal meddlers.

I share a distaste for government over-reach, intrusion, and interference.  And it should be natural for people to feel most comfortable and least fearful of authority closest to home, and thus, most untrusting and fearful of authority at the level of a federal government.  My general belief is that corruption is most enabled at the local level.  An important role of the Federal government and the Constitution is protection of an individual's 'inalienable rights' , including protection against infringement by state and local government.  In my life, this is the general role of the Federal authorities.  Their reach stops local industry from fouling the water I drink and the air I breathe.  It has failed to act against the abuse of power by local police.