America, We Have a Problem

This morning, even before the birds were up but not before my wife drove away to school at 5:00 a.m., I sat in the kitchen with a cup of coffee reading the Washington Post, whose front and editorial sections are still heavily focused on the Tucson shootings. There was a déjà vu quality to the reporting, like I had been there before. And, I had – and so have you.

So, I put the paper down and began to list from memory the number of major political figures I can recall in the last 150 years or so of American history who have been killed, injured, or shot at …. Undoubtedly, with a Google search, the list would be even greater. But here is my top-of-the-head list.

•Presidents assassinated: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William&; McKinley,and John F. Kennedy.
•Presidents injured by gunfire: Former President Theodore Roosevelt running as Bull Moose candidate in the 1912 campaign; and President Ronald Reagan.
•Presidents who were the targets of overt failed assassination attempts:President-elect Franklin Roosevelt (Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak took the bullet instead); President Harry Truman, the target of Puerto Rican terrorists at the Blair House where the President was living while the White House was being renovated; and President Gerald Ford.
•Presidential candidates or hopefuls who were killed or seriously injured by gunmen: Governor Huey Long of Louisiana; Senator Robert F. Kennedy; and former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace.
•Major political and/or religious leaders who were killed: Martin Luther King, Jr. And, now U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords is struggling for her life in a Tucson hospital after being shot in the head, and a U.S. District Court judge and a 9-year old girl lie dead.
•On top of this, in a 2009 book IN THE PRESIDENT’S SECRET SERVICE, author Ronald Kessler says that threats against President Obama had increased 400 percent from the 3,000 or so per year under President George W. Bush.

Frankly, I cannot think of any other major country that has had nearly that many political assassinations or attempted assassinations over roughly this same period. Can you? For the sake of argument, let’s go through a partial list: England, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Portugal, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries….

What does this list say about us as a people, as a country? Scholars and pundits — of which I am neither — are struggling with this same question. But, when you couple these political shootings with the high-profile incidents at Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Holocaust Museum, the shootings at the Capitol, and the more recent rampage at a Millard, Nebraska, high school, it suggests to me — at a minimum — that WE have a serious problem, and eventually WE have to do something about it.

And, I would suggest, we should start by SERIOUSLY discussing the ready availability of hand guns and automatic weapons, and the climate of political hatred from both Right and Left that makes the use of these weapons more likely. Neither of these is a fresh or novel recommendation, to belabor the obvious, but entrenched political positions on all sides, touting free speech and the 2nd Amendment, ultimately prevent us from doing anything about them. In fact, it seems this country has a problem these days having a serious, civil discussion of almost ANY major issue.

This latest shooting is another wake-up call, but I fear the current political climate is anything but favorable for effective follow-up. So, we’ll probably keep kicking this can down the road until the next shooting, the one after that, and the one after that….

Meantime, any country that considers itself the greatest nation in the world and fashions itself a shining city on the hill while ignoring this issue is deluding itself.

Gerald E. Lavey