imported post
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=385422&Category=14&subCategoryID=
I think of the state our country is in whenever I recall John Ireland’s stinging lines from “Red River”: “You know, there are only two things more beautiful than a good gun: a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere.”
One would think that far too many of us believe that there is, actually, nothing more beautiful than a good gun, or they have discovered that, as the great totalitarian Mao Zedong once said, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun.”
That power has transformed too many communities into slaughterhouses. Here in New York City, which is unique in many ways, there is commonality with many other cities forced to deal with the burden of gun violence.
KILLINGS ABOUND
At the end of last week, two people were killed in their Bronx home by an unknown assailant who shot them and a third person in the head. The previous weekend brought the killing of an unarmed citizen by an off-duty police officer who seems to have been suffering from road rage.
We should all recall when three college students were killed, execution-style, in Newark, N.J., not long after a mad student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. Don’t forget that street gangs have murdered thousands upon thousands since 9/11. Far too many believe that power comes from the barrel of a gun.
An inconvenient number are members of the National Rifle Association, which should probably be mounting a defense of the rapper T.I., who was recently arrested for buying three machine guns and silencers. The rapper surely wanted to do his hunting quietly.
The power of the NRA lobby has buckled the knees of most in Washington, D.C., and zipped the lips of presidential candidates, who dread being targeted by those who sometimes seem to want to send the country back to those good old days of gunfights like the one at the O.K. Corral.
The ever-brilliant and serious Diane Weathers joined the Brady campaign against gun violence while she was editor of Essence magazine in 2000. Weathers, who stage-managed the “Taking the Music Back” campaign against misogyny in popular music, was appalled by ongoing levels of gun violence that are addressed by almost no one in a high position, for fear of bringing down the wrath of the NRA.
TOO LITTLE DEBATE
“The biggest problem,” says Weathers, “is that there is no debate of national consequence. No one uses the term ‘gun control’ anymore because it has been reduced to a four-letter word by the NRA, which seems to think that they cannot give in on waiting periods, better ways of tracing the owners of weapons used in crimes, or any of the developments in forensics that could parallel what DNA has done for effective law enforcement. We desperately need a good, high-profile debate so that the public can see how it is being misled by those who claim to have their liberty at heart.”
COMPARE HIGHWAY SAFETY
I think Weathers is correct, but what we actually have before us is a confusion about the nature of rights. The NRA always couches its argument as a defense of our American rights as opposed to governmental control. But there is a reason why highways are engineered as well as they can be. The driver has the right to travel as safely as possible.
Citizens of America should have as much of a right to safety from gun violence as possible. But they probably will not understand the issue until the talk takes up more space in our political life.
Stanley Crouch’s e-mail address is:
scrouch@edit.nydailynews.com
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=385422&Category=14&subCategoryID=
I think of the state our country is in whenever I recall John Ireland’s stinging lines from “Red River”: “You know, there are only two things more beautiful than a good gun: a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere.”
One would think that far too many of us believe that there is, actually, nothing more beautiful than a good gun, or they have discovered that, as the great totalitarian Mao Zedong once said, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun.”
That power has transformed too many communities into slaughterhouses. Here in New York City, which is unique in many ways, there is commonality with many other cities forced to deal with the burden of gun violence.
KILLINGS ABOUND
At the end of last week, two people were killed in their Bronx home by an unknown assailant who shot them and a third person in the head. The previous weekend brought the killing of an unarmed citizen by an off-duty police officer who seems to have been suffering from road rage.
We should all recall when three college students were killed, execution-style, in Newark, N.J., not long after a mad student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. Don’t forget that street gangs have murdered thousands upon thousands since 9/11. Far too many believe that power comes from the barrel of a gun.
An inconvenient number are members of the National Rifle Association, which should probably be mounting a defense of the rapper T.I., who was recently arrested for buying three machine guns and silencers. The rapper surely wanted to do his hunting quietly.
The power of the NRA lobby has buckled the knees of most in Washington, D.C., and zipped the lips of presidential candidates, who dread being targeted by those who sometimes seem to want to send the country back to those good old days of gunfights like the one at the O.K. Corral.
The ever-brilliant and serious Diane Weathers joined the Brady campaign against gun violence while she was editor of Essence magazine in 2000. Weathers, who stage-managed the “Taking the Music Back” campaign against misogyny in popular music, was appalled by ongoing levels of gun violence that are addressed by almost no one in a high position, for fear of bringing down the wrath of the NRA.
TOO LITTLE DEBATE
“The biggest problem,” says Weathers, “is that there is no debate of national consequence. No one uses the term ‘gun control’ anymore because it has been reduced to a four-letter word by the NRA, which seems to think that they cannot give in on waiting periods, better ways of tracing the owners of weapons used in crimes, or any of the developments in forensics that could parallel what DNA has done for effective law enforcement. We desperately need a good, high-profile debate so that the public can see how it is being misled by those who claim to have their liberty at heart.”
COMPARE HIGHWAY SAFETY
I think Weathers is correct, but what we actually have before us is a confusion about the nature of rights. The NRA always couches its argument as a defense of our American rights as opposed to governmental control. But there is a reason why highways are engineered as well as they can be. The driver has the right to travel as safely as possible.
Citizens of America should have as much of a right to safety from gun violence as possible. But they probably will not understand the issue until the talk takes up more space in our political life.
Stanley Crouch’s e-mail address is:
scrouch@edit.nydailynews.com
