Uvalde massacre continues to expose perhaps America’s greatest failure.

 

“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.” - Rudyard Kipling

I won’t bore you with statistics that are now well known about America’s gun violence problem.  We are the epitome of a large industrial country who simply can no longer manage a crisis that other countries have managed relatively well.

The gun craze by some in this country has exacerbated any rational discussion about sane gun control measures.  But though a majority still wants stricter gun laws, Gallup polls shows that number diminishing over the last few years.  Dropping from 64% in 2019, to 57% in 2020, only 52% polled last year are in now in favor of stricter gun laws.  This is diametrically in contradiction to the reality of gun deaths in this country, as the statistics above show.

What could possibly lead people to abandon a rationale that sits juxtaposed to the insanity which ignores how diseases are the only other cause of death in America greater than that caused by guns?

With the number of gun sales increasing by leaps and bounds each year, about 1 in 3 Americans now possess a deadly firearm, many in households with children.  A condition that “is prospectively associated with later adult criminality and suicidality in specific groups of children.”  Both the Uvalde and Buffalo mass murderers were 18-year adolescents.

You would think that the adults in this country would react in a responsible manner under this nightmare scenario, and many of us are willing to.  But where it counts, the adults who would truly impact this brutal and mindless behavior, are most likely the ones that are sustaining and even feeding it. 

The gun industry’s lobbyist, the NRA, is usually one of the first groups to create barriers to sane gun control legislation, with their toadies on the the air waves and the internet feeling emboldened to feed the public a steady diet of extremist hyperbole about how any action to limit any American’s firepower, including the use of military-style accessories like body armor and high-capacity magazines, will violate their exaggerated view of the 2nd amendment.

To these profit and power-motivated purveyors of people who have been led to believe that more guns, not less, will solve our gun violence problem, it was always about the benjamin$.  Increased gun sells means higher profit margins regardless of the cost to American society.  Working with self-serving dimwits in government to obstruct any effort to keep their product from getting into the hands of the least stable and most naive people among us, is simply a business practice to gun manufacturers that enhances their bottom line.

But the true perpetrators of this national scourge are the feckless and spineless politicians, who offer little more than “thoughts and prayers” to a problem immune from such inane suggestions.  These “leaders” are actually cowardly followers of the gun industry and the financial influence they exact with their higher earnings.  Our own Governor Abbot encouraged Texans to buy more guns in a 2015 because, it seems, he was embarrassed that Texas ran a paltry second to California’s gun purchases.   "Let's pick up the pace Texans." he wrote, tagging gun rights advocacy group the National Rifle Association of America (NRA).

We’ve known for years that states with the highest gun ownership rates also have the highest gun deaths.  Only a mindless idiot would ignore such trends just to satisfy a an oft-angry contingent of the “don’t tread on me” crowd.   The same type of people who thought they were emulating early American patriots when they overran the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 - destroying public property and attempting to stop the legitimate election that had Donald Trump confronting his loser status.

These are people that get re-elected and continue to do nothing to end America’s gun death nightmare.  Not one Republican is willing to pass legislation that will help deter this mayhem by expanding back ground checks and employing red flag laws that keep guns out of the hands of those who have killed 169 school children since the 1999 Columbine massacre, as well as some 311,000 children who have suffered some form of gun violence during school hours since that day two decades ago.

This insanity can be brought to heel as it has in other countries around the world.  It just takes the political will of parents with school-aged children willing to elect representatives who have the courage to stand up the NRA and their sycophants and make this country safe enough to send our kids to school, to shop at our favorite stores and go to church without fearing they won’t return home.
 

When political recalls only serve a small group’s self-interest

 

“Those of a conservative disposition who feel unsettled by change might well be prevailed upon to oppose measures that threaten to upset the status quo and replace it with something unknown.  This is not necessarily because they oppose the content of the proposed reform, just that they oppose change itself.” - Dr. Madsen Pirie,  The impact of interest groups on public policy

Upon reading former City Councilman Don Duff’s reason for initiating a recall on District 4 Councilwoman Allison Maguire in the Denton R-C’s May 6th article, The basis for a recall petition against Alison Maguire? A meme on Facebook, his justification appears transparently flawed, unless of course you are part of the crowd these days who seek to gain political power by any means possible, despite what voters have shown their preference for.

I don’t disagree that the meme Ms. Maguire used was lacking good taste, especially in an ever increasing environment where gun violence is rampant.  But had this been a Republican campaign ad who use guns to appeal to a common culture and common fears, would Duff and his ilk been equally offended or vocal about it?  Who can forget “Sarah Palin’s infamous attack-ad that seemed literally to ‘target’ 17 sitting members of the House of Representatives, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.”?

And his objection to “an absolute, dead right-on gerrymandering of the worst kind” seems laughable in the face of this State’s GOP efforts to create one of the worst gerrymandered voting district maps in the country.  Again, the hypocrisy here from someone who lives in Denton’s most solid Republican voter bloc is beyond shameless.

Equally ludicrous is Duff’s concern about Maguire’s comments in the DRC about Denton turning blue, admonishing her for stepping over the line in our tradition to keep city elections non-partisan.  You would have thought he would have at least equated this to a recent campaign flyer that invoked the “Republican” label in its support of Gerard Hudspeth for Mayor.  But sadly, his silence was deafening here.

The remainder of his reasons remain dubious at best from someone who never really actively inserted himself in meaningful policy during his brief, two-year stint as District Three’s council representative. On occasion he would be seen nodding off when City Council sessions went beyond 9pm.

But let’s cut to the chase here.  This can easily be seen as an ongoing pattern by far-right conservatives employing yet another tactic to remove those elected officials who fall outside the right’s ideological circle.  Councilman Brian Beck is right when he calls Duff’s efforts a ploy to change the current leadership on the City Council.  

Trump MAGA supporters opposed his impeachment following his abuse of power to influence a foreign government to find dirt on his opponent, Joe Biden.  Let the people decide his fate they cried when the election rolls around.  God-forbid such a notion should apply to Allison Maguire however, whose use of a misplaced meme comes no where near the transgression that’s evolved into the “Big Lie” and still persist in its efforts today to undermine our constitutional democracy.  But apparently principals in fair play apply only when it suits a special interest’s agenda to attain political power.