Day 48: The Other Pandemic

I’m absolutely gutted right now.

Writing angry is never good, but you’ll excuse the oversight.

I’m feeling pretty hopeless.

The photo above is of Courtney Brousseau. My daughter was a classmate of his in high school. In response to my text to her this morning, she said, “…he had more potential than most I knew at school.”

Courtney was murdered.

After an illustrious career at Newbury Park High School where he was the Editor of the same student newspaper that my daughter was Chief Photographer, he enrolled at UC Berkeley. My school. My alma mater.

He went on to a position of leadership in our student union, and a cursory google search demonstrates the extent of his engagement here at Cal.

There are over 40,000 students here at Cal, but despite his well earned high profile, I never knew him. I’m the poorer for it.

Courtney didn’t die from Covid19. Courtney was murdered in a drive-by shooting.

With a gun. The other pandemic.

The pandemic that we will go on to ignore once the Covid pandemic is but a distant memory.

The pandemic that is easily diminished through common-sense gun legislation. You know, like Canada did within a month of their worst mass shooting.

I’m fucking sick of the other pandemic.

Friends of my kids and a Sheriff’s sergeant that I used to work with were murdered in the Borderline Bar shooting in Thousand Oaks a few years ago. In the same bar where I proposed to the mother of my children.

Courtney is just the latest example of the other pandemic to affect me personally.

I lost a son five-years after a vehicle accident that became a high-profile media event in the same community Courtney was raised. I’d like to say I can’t imagine what the family is feeling right now, but I do.

Maybe the anger is a manifestation of the PTSD I continue to suffer as the result of his accident.

Maybe it’s just because it’s so fundamentally fucked-up that a young man with so much potential to make a positive impact in this dystopian world was cut down by another gun, while Covidiots roam the streets and the President acts like a petulant child on Twitter.

I’m so sorry for Courtney’s family. I’m so sorry for his friends and the Cal community that embraced him.

I’m devastated that his voice and his spirit was silenced.

This was posted hours before Courtney’s murder:

Everything’s okay for you now Courtney.

I wish I could say the same for us…

The Paradigm Shift

The murder of 22 (at the time of this post) in El Paso, Texas, by a white supremacist supporter of Donald Trump signified the shift for me. Since Trump announced his run for the Presidency, through the date of the shooting, I’ve avoided directly confronting supporters of Trump. I’ve decided I can no longer sit on the sidelines and, through my inaction and silence, not actively ostracize those who maintain a cult-like fondness for the racist that was elected in 2016.

It was entirely predictable that Trump’s rhetoric would cause bloodshed, and El Paso is perhaps the most unambiguous example of this. One need only watch one of his rallies when Trump laughs at the suggestion that hispanics be shot for seeking asylum, then further asserts that “you can only do that in the panhandle,” to understand the naked racism that has been slowly revealed in the office of the President.

I’d be remiss, however, if I was to lay this at his feet entirely. He is, in fact, more of an opportunist than demagogue, who has been coddled by the more sinister, calculating forces of the Republican party. The election of Ronald Reagan and the rise of Fox News precipitated recent events and a cursory examination of these events reveal their causative effects.

That said, in my opinion, the United States has reached a tipping point. A point at which those of us who recognize the symptoms of fascism, indeed the frightening parallels between Mussolini’s rise (another not-too-bright opportunistic grifter) and that of Trump, have a deep responsibility to sound the alarm…at any personal cost.

I’ve been hesitant to lose friends over this, but that ended with El Paso. I will call out, and challenge any of my friends that support this man and this destructive administration. The time for silence is over, and frankly, I’m ashamed I’ve waited this long. I will mourn friendships lost, but as I learned this summer in Dr. Alexis Herr’s class, “The History of Fascism,” the most common denominator in the rise of the fascists regimes was consent. The quiet acquiescence of the populace who found the actions of their leaders offensive, but were unwilling to take the personal risks to challenge them.

I lost a friend this weekend when she took exception to a relatively benign post condemning Trump on one of my social media pages. Her objection included a personal attack (as so many of his supporters seem to favor), so it was a relatively easy decision to block and ostracize her. But I knew at that moment, that it wasn’t enough. I need to challenge these people. Not in an ad hominem manner, but in a direct, and fact-based condemnation of their support.

Frankly, based on past experience, I know how this generally ends, and I suspect I’ll be employing the block button more frequently. And that’s not something I’ve been willing to do. The lives lost last weekend changed that for me.

Consent is no longer an option.

(image courtesy of my friend Joe Rose)

 

Thanksgiving 18

I’m unemployed. I’m in debt. I’m at least 20 pounds overweight. My arms and face are covered in small wounds. My future is uncertain…at best.

I couldn’t be more thankful.

I’m in my senior year at UC Berkeley and I’m unemployed because I’ve been able to finance school and living expenses primarily through scholarships. I’m in debt because I’ve been fortunate enough to only have to take advantage of a small amount of federal loans to help with school so far. I’m 20 pounds overweight because my life, during each semester, consists of riding my bike 7 miles round-trip to school and then spending the next 4-8 hours snacking on crap foods while I study or write essays. As I write this, I watch the blood flow from the back of my right hand from yet another bite from the rescue kitten we took in a little over two months ago. My future is uncertain because I’ve been blessed with the potential opportunity to stay at Cal an extra year and prep for grad schools. I’m planning on pursuing an MFA in creative writing at any number of schools across the country.

I share this journey with a woman of unparalleled patience and tenacity. My partner has supported my transformation to reentry college student with gusto; she herself has recently entered a Masters degree program.

I want to write. This semester, I’ve taken several courses that have actually given me the tools to do so. I am incredibly blessed to be in a class taught by a world-renowned author who is endlessly generous and encouraging. I was able to “write-in” to a class taught by Joyce Carol Oates next spring, and although I won’t be taking her class because of logistical issues, the fact that she awarded me one of only 15 spots in her class,  based solely upon my work of fiction fills me endlessly with hope.

I am a fifty-seven-year-old work in progress. I’m petulant, I rant, I get scared, I get angry. But eventually life corrects my course through a series of incidents that reminds me how damn lucky I am.

On the morning of November 8th of this year, I awoke to a series of news alerts describing a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks. My hometown. The location of the shooting was a bar that I knew very well, on a night on which I also knew my 22-year-old son frequented. After frantically confirming the well being of both of my children who still live in T.O., I began to unexpectedly sob as I woke my girlfriend to tell her of the news.

And two weeks later, my eyes are still filled with tears as I count my lucky stars that my son wasn’t killed.

A lot of tough stuff has happened to me in my life…things that other people have remarked that they weren’t sure they could have survived.

On this Thanksgiving day, a day that has come to take on a depressingly sad meaning for me in light of my studies of American history, I want to celebrate my life. My extreme gratitude for the things I haven’t lost:

My children

My girlfriend

My mouthy kitten

My health

My family

My friends

Most of all, I’m grateful to be writing this. I’m grateful for another day on Earth where I get to “be.”

Thank you to whatever force/spirit/entity/wavelength that protected my children that night. That has protected me through some rough waters.

Thank you for my life.

The Obama Conundrum…

But at the end of the day we couldn’t.

I voted for President Obama in both elections. I like the man. I believe he is genuine and his heart is in the right place.

But at the end of the day, his presidency is a failure on many levels. Not the least of which are the broken promises. The promises of change. The inspired campaign speeches that rallied a post-Bush nation.

Very little of it came to pass.

Mr. Obama’s tears discussing Sandy Hook during his Executive Action announcement on gun control were moving and no doubt heartfelt. But they represent everything that was wrong with his administration. Too little. Too late.

True gun reform is within reach, if the deal maker’s in Washington are willing to make the political sacrifices necessary. A reasonable compromise can be struck between the second amendment and those demanding a ban on all weapons. I won’t bore you with the details, but it can be done.

My point is that, yet again, President Obama’s actions in this area are weak and ineffective. Certainly not the actions of Candidate Obama. Not the president I voted for.

The president I voted for would not allow the egregious violation of civil right this administration has displayed. The unprecedented intimidation of journalists and whistle-blower’s by this Justice Department is truly stunning. Certainly not what I expected from this president nor what was promised.

The lack of foresight and action on the Ukraine and Syria demonstrate just two of the administrations catastrophic foreign policy blunders. Don’t even get me started on their complete lack of leadership in dealing with the despot Netanyahu and how our relationship with that failed government has threatened our national security.

At the end of the day, there were some wins. The economy, jobs, and most notably the Affordable Care Act. But if these wins came at the price of the aforementioned disasters, they were certainly not worth it in my estimation.

Here’s what really scares me: I believe in Obama the man. I believe he is decent and truly wanted to do the right thing. But he was clearly outmatched politically. And this doesn’t bode well for any idealistic outsider running for our highest office.

It appears that the entrenched/corrupt insiders (read Hilary) will be the only liberals able to affect change, albeit within the framework of the current plutocracy.

I would love to sit down with Mr. Obama someday and ask him what happened. How did his grand vision come apart. Alas, I don’t think we will ever know…

 

 

 

After Further Review…

President Obama discussing the tragedy in Charleston.

Guns.

I have previously posted my position on guns and gun control. I maintain my core belief that firearms are a tool and that the tool is not the source of evil or the inherent problem. This is, in my opinion, a fundamentally logical argument.

It’s also an argument that I am now willing to abandon.

After further review, I believe it is time for comprehensive and aggressive changes to our gun control laws. This is a position that I have, for the majority of my life, been against. However, in light of recent events and in the absence of any other real substantive solutions, I am willing to argue for a constitutional amendment to dramatically alter the Second Amendment.

I don’t do this lightly. Although I have been painfully disappointed with several of President Obama’s decisions during the course of his presidency, I believe at the end of the day, he is a decent man, albeit severely lacking the fortitude to accomplish the many things he promised as candidate Obama. But on gun control and his speech after the massacre in Charleston, he got it right. This is the Obama I voted for.

It’s time. We as a nation must enact sweeping gun control legislation to limit the availability of firearms in our country. It must be done. Eliminating military grade, so-called “assault weapons” is a start, but sweeping legislation must be immediately enacted to control and restrict firearm purchases. Money must be spent to upgrade the background check process. EVERY firearm needs to be accounted for.

I hear the hue and cry from the right already and as a staunch opponent of giving the government any more of my information or usurping any more of my liberties, I have to say that I’m willing to take the proverbial bullet on this one.

It’s the only way.

We need to have the political fortitude to stand up to the N.R.A. and the right-wing fear mongerers and say enough is enough. Too much of our precious human capital has been reduced to so many police blotter statistics.

The killing must stop and I’m willing to compromise my core beliefs in an attempt to make this happen. How about you?

There is a Time for Censorship…

This was too close to home. Both literally and figuratively.

The murders at UCSB were committed by a deranged man that went to High School next door to mine. His crime was committed in the campus community of a university that is well known to our area. One of the victims was from one of our local high schools.

Most chillingly for me however, the Facebook post of the older brother of my son’s best friends, and a friend of mine: “IV deli got shot up. People taking cover in Blaze. Stay inside and stay away.”

My friend was working at Blaze (a well-known Pizza place on the loop) when he heard the gunshots and saw the terrified bystanders take cover in his place of business.

I’ve had enough.

We’ve dissected Sandy Hook. We’ve examined the effects of the Reagan era mental health funding cuts.

We’ve talked gun control ad nauseum.

Now misogyny is being introduced into the debate of yet another tragic mass murder.

When. Does. It. Stop?

Here’s a humble suggestion: STOP publishing the names, details, videos, manifesto’s, and psychotic rants of these killers.

STOP IT NOW.

My son asked if I watched this clown’s YouTube video. Of course I didn’t. Why in the hell would I want to watch the pathetic lamentations of a killer. Apparently I’m in the minority though.

If the media would self-censor everything but the basic details of the killers (ie. age, location, occupation) perhaps these individuals wouldn’t develop such a sense of final self-aggrandizement.

They KNOW they are going down in a blaze of glory. Their pathetic lives will be celebrated by the TMZ’s of the world. Their meaningless existences will be broadcast and examined by every voyeuristic media outlet.

They will be famous. Their lives will finally have meaning.

Stop it. Just stop.

Let’s celebrate the lives of the victims. The innocent lives snuffed out by this nameless/faceless madman or woman.

Let’s not give these losers any more type, air-time, exposure.

Let’s leave them under the rock.

If we do this, maybe they won’t crawl out into the pale light any longer.

I’m not looking.

I encourage each and every one of you to do the same.

The Death of Compromise…

As previously documented in this blog, I own guns and support the rights of gun owners and the second amendment.

But I’d like to think I’m willing to compromise. For example, if you can guarantee me that ALL guns will magically be removed from the hands of criminals and mentally ill in this country, I’d be willing to consider surrendering my guns.

I also feverishly support stringent background checks and waiting periods for purchasing weapons.

I’m also a (former) reader of Guns & Ammo magazine, and I particularly enjoyed the last page musings of Dick Metcalf. His insights on guns and the gun culture always seemed measured and reasonable.

So of course he was fired.

His termination brilliantly exposes the current state of the “gun culture” and the power of the NRA in this country.

Draw the line and don’t budge. Be afraid. Fight to the finish.

And die doing so…

I simply can’t believe that the majority of Americans will ultimately buy into the crap the NRA spews these days. And I suspect that in light of increasingly tragic school shootings, at some point the NRA will implode under the weight of their own fear and bigotry.

I hope.

This issue…this failure to find common ground: compromise, is very well-known in the middle east.

As the war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sip martini’s and enjoy their golden years, hundreds of thousands of children are dying in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen as the DIRECT result of the destabilization of that region by our government.

And now in this gargantuan power vacuum, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or “the Levant” as they are now known, are predictably exploiting this for their own Neanderthal agenda.

Shia and Sunni. Black and White. Christian and Muslim.

No compromise.

My way or the highway.

An eye for an eye.

When does it end?

How The N.R.A. is Taking Our Guns

Some form of assault weapon ban is likely to pass at the federal level in the next few years.  Semi-automatic rifles that have certain characteristics will be banned.  And more people will die.  This well-intentioned yet ill-conceived and uninformed law will NOT reduce the kind of violence that ironically was its catalyst.

We as a society, suffer from a lack of will…a dearth of the collective ability to critically and dispassionately analyze a problem and offer cogent solutions.  And if  by some miracle we were to do so, we lack the political vision to exercise a concept called compromise.  And this is why the N.R.A. will be largely responsible for the very ban they are screeching to halt.

Of the current knee-jerk responses to Sandy Hook, one actually makes real sense.  Universal background checks for potential gun owners.  I have them in my state and didn’t blink when I was asked to submit to the process and wait 10 days to get my gun…it simply made sense and I saw the societal value of the regulation.  Any law-abiding gun owner should easily be able to wrap their head around this concept.  Let’s not let criminals buy guns.  Let’s not let folks with documented mental illnesses or those under restraining orders buy guns.  Pretty simple concept at its core, yet to the N.R.A., this is apparently an invasion of privacy of epic proportions and a sure sign that Uncle Sam will be knocking on your door to take your guns away someday.  That the evil empire will have access to your name, address, and that fact that you legally own a firearm.  God forbid they have that stuff…oh wait, other than the owning a gun part, they already have that you neanderthals…it’s called income taxes, but then again some of your ilk aren’t big supporters of that either, so you’ll forgive me for calling out your dysfunction.

Comprehensive mental health, public safety, and firearms regulation funding are the only solutions that offer some common sense solutions to the firearm related tragedies we too frequently read about.  Sadly, these things cost money, require political courage, and frankly aren’t sexy.  It’s too easy for the left (of which I am a proud member) to ignorantly decry that the guns are the problem while the right petulantly and dangerously oppose background checks while screaming that the sky is falling.

I honestly was  hoping to pick up an AR style semi-automatic rifle someday.  If you are a firearms enthusiast like me, it’s a cool weapon and a great addition to a collection.  If I’m not allowed to own one (currently I can’t really in my state anyway) as the result of common sense and multi-faceted legislation aimed at reducing gun violence, I’ll be disappointed but am willing to make that compromise.  I don’t think these weapons should be banned as they are not the issue, but if they are…I will have Wayne LaPierre and his cronies at the N.R.A. to thank…

Nice job Wayne…

A Bullet Point Primer on Guns

As the debate about “guns” heats up and the administration is on the cusp of making their recommendations, I’d like to add my two cents and help frame the issue so that we are asking the right questions and seeking the solutions that we can all agree on:  reducing firearm related mass shootings.  After all, these tragedies are what has propelled the issue back into the national spotlight.

Let’s start with my prejudices:

• I’m a registered Democrat and proud liberal
• I’m a supporter of the second amendment
• I’m a FORMER member of the N.R.A.
• It’s my opinion that the N.R.A. believes promoting fear is their best strategy for keeping their constituents, the gun industry and millions of law-abiding gun owners, happy and secure in the “knowledge” that draconian government storm troopers will not be knocking their doors down to confiscate their weapons (I’m not making this up folks)

Let’s frame the debate:

• We all want to stop these tragedies, but how?
• This blog succinctly frames the overarching issues in this debate…is it about gun control or people control?
• After considering the points listed in the blog cited above…now what about the guns?
• A gun is an inanimate object…period.

Two of the most politically sexy methods of stopping these mass shootings are by banning “Military Style Assault Weapons” and the purchase/use of high-capacity magazines.

Let’s define these terms and look at some irrefutable facts:

• This is a weapon commonly identified as a “Military Style Assault Weapon” 

• This is a weapon that is commonly identified, simply, as an autoloading hunting rifle:

What is the COSMETIC difference between these two rifles?   

• The assault rifle has a protruding handle for the right hand, the hunting rifle does not

What is the FUNCTIONAL difference between these two rifles?

• NONE…they both fire one bullet each time the trigger is pulled.   I repeat, there is NO functional difference between these rifles

What is the downrange, or end use damage difference between these two rifles?

• The assault rifle pictured (like the majority of the classified assault rifles, including the Sandy Hook weapon) are a .223 caliber weapon
• The hunting rifle pictured is a .308 win caliber but is configurable in other calibers all more deadly than the .223
• So the facts are that the hunting rifle, one not heretofore entered into the ban discussion, is actually a deadlier weapon than the so-called “assault” weapon (those experts on ballistics and terminal velocity will excuse my oversimplification)

Fact:

• By a two-to-one margin, the majority of deaths in mass shooting are carried out by handguns
• High-capacity magazines are classified as clips that contain more than 10 bullets.

I had my son time me this weekend.  How long, I wondered, would it take me to change the magazines on my .45 cal Semi-Automatic pistol:

• It took me 4.2 seconds, to clumsily I might add, change magazines and effectively double the capacity of this weapon.  Experienced marksmen, or those with even a little practice, can do this in under two seconds.
• Two seconds (or 4.2 for a 51 y/o man with no practice) is what we are buying with the high-capacity magazine ban…fact

Some definitions and facts for those unfamiliar with firearms:

• Automatic weapon:  trigger pulled once and gun fires a rapid stream of bullets
• Semi-automatic weapon: trigger pulled once and gun fires one bullet.  It is not an automatic and cannot be legally modified as such
• Single action weapon:  an additional function must be performed prior to pulling the trigger and firing one bullet (examples are pulling the hammer back on a single action revolver or pumping <racking> a pump-action shotgun)

Summary:

• These mass killings make me sick to my stomach and makes my heart ache and I too want solutions
• I am in favor of, and demand, background checks and waiting periods for any firearm purchase
• I am willing to entertain bans on certain firearms if the argument is fact-based
• Reducing these killings will require a multidisciplinary approach, but as it relates to firearms, unless the parties are willing to agree upon the aforementioned indisputable facts, the firearm component of this debate will continue to be steeped in prejudice and misinformation and further polarize extremists on both sides of this issue.