measure 114 – Blurg.

On Monday, March 27, six innocent souls were taken at a Christian school in Nashville Tennessee: three of them children. Immediately, the flood of thoughts and prayers was so overwhelming, it solved the problem in an instant.

We had decided as a nation we’ve finally gone too far.

I’m lying, of course. As I type this, it’s Wednesday morning in the Pacific Northwest, March 29, and already since Tuesday there have been 25 more people killed and 62 wounded by firearms in 77 new incidents. Further proof that thoughts and prayers have no effect, and further proof that, apparently, we feel we still have not gone far enough to warrant any preventive action.

Yesterday, the day after the students needlessly lost their lives in their school, Barry Black, a retired Rear Admiral who serves as the U.S Senate Chaplain spoke at the opening of that chamber’s business:

Lord, when babies die at a church school, it is time for us to move beyond thoughts and prayers. Remind our lawmakers of the words of the British statesman Edmund Burke: ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.’ Lord, deliver our senators from the paralysis of analysis that waits for the miraculous. Use them to battle the demonic forces that seek to engulf us. We pray, in your powerful name, amen.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/28/us-senate-chaplain-tennessee-shooting/

Amen.

Meanwhile, several people who were elected to work in the same building as Barry Black opted to remain paralyzed. As common as “thoughts and prayers” is a response from a certain group of lawmakers to these shootings is the complaint that people are too quick to politicize [insert latest shooting].

Yesterday, the House Majority Leader said, “I really get angry when I see people trying to politicize it for their own personal agenda, especially when we don’t even know the facts.” He suggested that all “the other side” (wait – there’s another side to an epidemic of gun violence where it’s okay…?) wants to do, “…is take guns away from law-abiding citizens before they even know the facts…”

Fine. Let’s not act hastily in response to Tennessee. How about we only use facts from last year’s shootings? Parkland? Sandy Hook? Columbine?

How soon is enough damn time for these people to pull their heads out of the NRA’s ass and do something?

We have the facts already, from so many, many shootings. Let’s use them.

I don’t want your guns. I just want the guns to quit killing people in our homes, business…and schools.

We’re now a week past the election; this is the day when Oregon certifies its vote – it leaves a week window open to allow ballots to arrive by mail, and as long as they are postmarked by the deadline, they can be counted. Of the many things on the ballot this year, one of the more contentious items was Measure 114.

In short, this measure requires a permit to purchase a firearm and bans magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. For the permits, police agencies will have to add a process to their offices – already some sheriffs have announced they won’t comply with this addition to Oregon’s Constitution, claiming it is “unconstitutional” in part or in whole.

Funny – I thought the Constitution was pretty clear: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”

Well now: regulations. Go figure.

Measure 114 puts Oregon near the head of the pack when it comes to firearms regulations. It doesn’t take firearms away from anyone, although reading the voter’s guide and letters to the editor leading up to election day there were many dire warnings about government coming for your guns! Measure 114 just, well, regulates the sale and transfer of them going forward.

This measure came about in no small part because a number of us have been fed up with the epidemic of firearms deaths in our nation. Yesterday’s headlines tell us about the shootings at the universities of Virginia and Idaho, in a year where there have been 599 mass shootings thus far.

At the rate we’re going, by the time you read this, we’ll be past 600 mass shootings for the year.

In a few weeks, we will meet a grisly anniversary: the tenth anniversary of the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary. Sandy Hook is but one of many school shootings over the years, but it’s worth noting its anniversary for a few reasons. One is personal: Benny Wheeler, killed at six years, is the nephew of a childhood friend of mine. Another reason is that the victims’ families have been in the news recently, as a vile conspiracy theorist who maligned and slandered those families has been found guilty of his malignant slander, and faces over a billion dollars in court-ordered fines.

We’ve become numb to the daily reports of mass shootings. We’ve become numb to school shootings – over 35 this year. That’s almost one per week of the school year.

A school shooting per week.

Really?

It’s in the face of this epidemic that people started doing something. A few years back, Oregon passed a common-sense safe gun storage law. And this year, Measure 114.

It’s not a wave, but it’s a start. Maybe an early indicator of a changing tide? We can only hope.

We, as a nation, have a problem. Too many people die from firearms in the country. Period.

We can reduce that number, but we manage to avoid our responsibilities to each other in favor of a distorted sense of individual freedoms. Our nation was built on the notion of insuring domestic tranquility and promoting the general welfare for we, the people.

And so I was intrigued to read over this morning’s Oatmeal News Network a very insightful piece by the Washington Post’s Petula Dvorak. She makes a great point – we’ve been here before. Fifty years ago, we decided too many people dire from a different kind of fire: actual fire.

So we did something about it. And since then, fewer people die from fire.

And nobody has come to take anyone’s Zippos.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/14/uva-shooting-run-hide-fight-alert/

Tag: measure 114

I don’t want your guns.

Stop, drop, and roll.