Fifty years ago, in
1962, Bob Dylan penned this iconic song in a New York coffee shop – in 10
minutes, he said. It quickly became a
sensation as a protest song against the war in Vietnam and part of the repertoire
of the budding Civil Rights movement. Peter, Paul, and Mary; Joan Baez; and
Dylan himself, among others, recorded it.
To this day, most of us at a certain age still remember the lyrics and
will sing it nostalgically at the slightest provocation.
The irony
is that no one knows what “blowin’ in the wind” means for sure. Even Dylan himself leaves the meaning open to
interpretation – which essentially seems to come down to two choices: Like the wind, which is all around us, the
answer is right in front of us. All we
have to do is reach out and grab it. The
other option is: If something is blowing
in the wind, it remains elusive and maybe even out of reach.
That song
haunted me all week as I, along with most Americans, once again tried to get
our heads and hearts around the another gun-related tragedy. Fueled by our grief and outrage, we once again
proclaimed ourselves ready to do something about it. This time for sure. We signed petitions circulating on the
Internet, and we called or wrote the White House and our representatives on
Capitol Hill.
But are
we really ready to do something “meaningful?”
I would
love to think so, but I remain deeply skeptical. Like Charlie Brown, I keep hoping Lucy will
hold the football like she’s supposed to, but we know how that story goes. We’ve been here before – four times in just the
last four years alone, as the President noted in his moving remarks at Newtown.
And time
is against us. Christmas is just a week
away and with members of Congress having to deal with the fiscal cliff before they
head home for the holidays, there is no time on the legislative calendar for
meaningful action now. The Members won’t
return until sometime in January.
Meantime, there is Christmas, New Years, NCAA bowl games, the NFL
playoffs and endless other distractions.
In the interim, the tragedy at Newtown will move to the back pages of
the newspapers and recede in the national consciousness. Our national memory and our ability to keep
focus are scarily short.
To that point, earlier
this week, in an Op-Ed in the Washington
Post Joe Califano, former Presidential aide and Cabinet member under
President Johnson, wrote that President Johnson wanted to take “meaningful”
action on gun control following the assassination of Robert Kennedy. The President figured that in the wake of
President Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, and now Senator
Kennedy’s, the time was ripe for legislative action. But, he told Califano, we have a roughly 10-day
window. We must do it quickly, within
ten days, the President reasoned, before the NRA has a chance to regroup.
Notice
that the National Rifle Association (NRA) remains silent on this latest issue? They can read the Tea Leaves far better than
I can, and they know time is in their favor.
They know that by the time members of Congress return, the issue will
not be as red-hot as it is now. Besides, they also know that a Congress that
cannot stand up to Grover Norquist has no chance of confronting the NRA, which
is Grover Norquist on steroids.
Do I hope
I am wrong? You can’t believe how fervently
I cling to that fragile hope.
Meantime,
I fervently hope that you all have a wonderful holiday with families and
friends. And, for those of you who keep
reading my musings year after year, I admire your steadfastness, patience, and forbearance. I am also flattered and most grateful.
Happy New Year to you all.
Gerald E. Lavey
Gerry,
ReplyDeleteThe opportunity here is for America to seriously look at our mental health care system. Being a gun owner is both a responsibility as well as a right (at least for now). The young man who committed this heinous act was obviously well armed by just any one of the weapons that he had in his control. Each weapon on its own merit was a very lethal weapon. They weren't Saturday night specials as this family was well above the average social-economic standards and by all accounts thus far, they were acquired legally in a state with fairly tough gun control laws.
So what was missing? Why did a reportedly educated parent miss the signs? What did the community fail to see? Was she in denial? Did the system let this young adult fall through the cracks as has been my experience?
Being a parent of a child with psychological issues, I can tell you that the system makes it nearly impossible to get help even when you push hard. I've even had to take 'psychological testing' and counseling to make sure I or my wife weren't the issue. Its a constant battle that you fight not only with the child but the system. The financial burden can be oppressive if you don't have the resources and top notch insurance. The easiest course of action can be to put your head in the sand and hope that 'they grow out of it'. (Not at all recommended). The system wants the parent to foot the bill, but the system keeps you in the dark about treatment and diagnoses because of HIPA restrictions. It's emotionally difficult for a parent to label their child with any of the psychological titles. The system makes you go back through the entire process and start from square one for each and every episode as the odds are that the 'facility' available will be different for each event. Each and every facility has a different approach, diagnoses and treatment regimen. I haven't observed much data sharing and we've tried but then again the privacy laws protect the patient to their own detriment.
The meds all have less than desirable side effects and the dosages and formulations need to be tailored to each specific patent for every event. Keeping the patient on meds is a constant struggle; as soon as they feel normal they make the self assessment that they don't need the meds any more and the cycle restarts.
For whatever reason in this instance, the parent didn't see or acknowledge the signs and she failed to keep her weapons properly secured. At best, this episode, might have been the 'initial psychotic event' without warning.
Being a gun owner and having a child (now young adult) with psychological issues has meant double locking weapons and ammo, relocating them to safe storage facilities or securing them in a vault. When you call the police and emergency personnel to your house to respond to an event, they treat it initially as a 'domestic dispute' since the symptoms often manifest themselves in that general manner. The first thing the response personnel ask is do you have weapons at which time they often confiscate them. The time and process to recover them is arduous at best and I've seen it take 6 months or more.
All I ask is that people really take the time to understand the root issues in this topic. There is so much more to this issue than just gun control and the NRA. The terrible Sandy Hook tragedy is just one of a myriad of equally devastating actions that an emotionally troubled person could have taken. Sane, rational people do not take innocent people's lives and certainly not children. Pointing a loaded weapon even in self defense and knowing the consequences, while it seems exhilarating in the movies is not a natural human action - not even for a trained soldier in a hostile situation. I know that from experience as well.
Jerry, I wouldn't miss your musings for anything.
ReplyDeleteDennis, why on earth would you own guns, locked or double locked? And why, if the police are wise enough to take them from your house, do they keep giving them back?
I absolutely agree that the primary issue is giving more support to families who are trying to care for loved ones with mental health issues, but there is no reason for any person, sane or not, to have access to guns that can mow down dozens of people in a matter of seconds.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-lets-talk-abo
Did I spell your name right? I was thinking of my Grandpa Jerry.
ReplyDeleteDennis -- My heart goes out to you. I had no idea and can only imagine how difficult that must be for you and your wife. My wife Brigitte is now teaching Special Needs kids as a substitute and she now has a better understanding of how challenging that is for a teacher and even greater sympathy for paretns of Special Needs children. I realize that this whole issue is bigger than NRA and more gun control. But what I fail to understand, making one of Heather's points, is why there can't be a strict curb on semi-authomatic weapons. I hear the arguments for continuing to allow them but I have not heard any argument that persuades me in the least.
ReplyDeleteJerry,
DeleteMy wife Joann is a special needs (30+ years) teacher as well. I too was very uneducated in this domain until 12 years ago. Experience is a cruel and hard teacher and I've learned how lacking our system is. My wife has borne the brunt of this experience. The Newtown incident is but the tip of the iceberg. The American public has no idea how hard it is to get help for someone - especially once they are older than 14. Individual rights, civil liberties protections are barriers and even the medical system won't and can't act on what an individual might do or that they are building up to crisis state. (They typically only see one brief sample so they have no basis to see or understand trends). Harm to one's self or others must be clearly demonstrated before an action can be taken. Most often it is too late. The standard of proof is just too high.
I'm not against removing some of the weapons from the market. I am a NRA member as well. Why - because as as gun owner, I need to understand the law, learn more about how to safely use, transport and secure these weapons. 20% of NRA material is just politics. 80% of their material is fantastic and it provides a forum to learn, properly train and safely shoot. So many folks can't see the forest through the trees. Hopefully the NRA will learn to lead with the 80% good and temper the 20% but like all special interests it get skewed. So many folks miss that point and I understand why. Folks fear guns, snakes, pit bulls and spiders and a host of other things. We forget that only people can be bad. Evil won't disappear even if we remove all the rocks on the earth. Man's propensity to do such vile things is amazing. Fortunately, our ability to do good greatly outweighs the evil - most of the time.
When people call for gun control, I'd ask them first have they ever tried to own a gun. Amazingly their response is no. Its a media driven perception and more often than not it is inaccurate. There are some gaps between the states that can be fixed but most, albeit not all, would be amazed at the process. It isn't trivial. For the most part you just don't go to a store, lay down your money and walk out with a gun. It's a lot easier if you are inclined to go the black market route - the same way most criminals get their weapons.
Gun owners are often vilified. The amazing part is that so many owners are soldiers, law enforcement officers and many other very respected individuals. You don't become a top marksman by just on the job training. WV's governor is a NRA member; (He's even a democrat). Like all things in life however there is a fringe element as well. I have concerns that when the legal process is more onerous than other means - the other means will win out.
I rant and I apologize. Like most hard things in life the real solutions are not simple.
Thanks, Heather. I always appreciate your thoughtful comments and feedback. And, yes, you did spell my name "Jerry" correctly. And I am a Grandpa Jerry -- the proud Opa of two darling girls -- Frances and Mary Sparks, 13 and 11 respectively.
ReplyDeleteLucky girls! I was lucky enough to have my Grandpa Jerry AND my Grandpa Charlie (Grandpa Jerry's dad). When I was 5, Grandpa Charlie tried to explain that he was my great-grandpa, and I was like, "I know! You ARE great!" :)
ReplyDeleteOn the gun issue, I grew up around guns. I'm an Ohioan. I can take them apart, put them back together, and I'm a pretty good shot. But I have also seen first hand how guns make a bad situation deadly (two separate shootings in the family, one fatal, and more than one instance of the dangerous mixture of alcohol and firearms). Bottom line, I won't have a gun in my house with my kids. They have pellet guns and air rifles, and their uncle has guns that they can shoot under close supervision. Why risk having something in your house that can so easily kill someone when you have kids or someone with mental or emotional problems? I just don't understand the rationale.
Hi Jerry,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thoughtful piece. I can't contribute any new insight into the gun ownership issue, except to emphasize that Americans feel it is a right to own guns, and that is not going to change. It's a RIGHT, not a privilege, backed by, in my view, a misguided interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. We non-gun owners need to get that through our heads and stop believing that that's going to change. Nonetheless, I don't think it's beyond our political abilities to regulate the sale of assault style weapons.
Most gun owners, I imagine, see themselves as patriotic, law abiding Americans who have a deep regard for this country. Have we engaged them in trying to come up with a solution to the misuse of high-powered weaponry?
And why is it we can feel like a family of Americans after a tragedy, but find it so difficult not to demonize others during more peaceful times?
Hats off to you, Jerry, for your wonderful blog.
Kevin
Thank you, Kevin. I always appreciate your thoughtful feedback. You're the best. Hope you and Val had a peaceful Christmas. Jerry
ReplyDelete