Did any of you watch the Sixty Minutes segment Sunday night featuring the interview with a group of the Newtown massacre parents and loved ones? You really have to take a look at it, and if it doesn't touch you to the core then...well, it will! http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50144358n
These people are still suffering four months later but they are articulate and passionate about changes to gun control. It was unsettling that they are asking for so little though. They might be hollering in outrage for a ban on automatic weapons. Instead they have asked for universal background checks and limits on magazine size. These are modest expectations given their profound loss, and the realization that more than 3,000 Americans have died by shooting since the massacre four months ago. But the U.S. Congress refuses to act, even as the number of gun deaths continues to rise.
Today there will be a prayer vigil in Washington with the hope that the nation's leaders will wake up:
To make sure Congress hears our voice, Sojourners is joining with PICO Network to host an interfaith prayer vigil in Washington, DC, this Thursday, April 11th at 11:30 a.m.
We’ll join hands in prayer on the National Mall surrounded by more than 3,200 wooden crosses and other religious symbols to commemorate those who have died since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. All last week, Sojourners staff and volunteers have been building crosses and preparing for Thursday’s witness.
I sure hope someone will be listening.
Did any of you see the interview? What are your thoughts about guns in America, and this country?
Part of why we see what these poor folks are asking for as modest is that I honestly think Canadians underestimate the power of "gun culture" in America.
ReplyDeleteCanadians are far more used to government intervention in our lives, from health care to CPP, ... I mean, really: name your social program. We may grumble, but in the end we all seem to accept government as a force for good.
In the States, there's such anti-interventionist sentiment PERIOD, and the strain attached to gun control is even more virulent. The changes we would therefore see as common sensical are an affront to liberty down south.
(And then there's the gun lobby and its influence on Congress. Don't even get me started ...)
Excellent points, Ian.
ReplyDeleteI saw Michael Moore being interviewed by Piers Morgan a few weeks ago, and it was the same day a US Senator declared his opposition to an outright ban on assault weapons.
Moore and Morgan were so incensed, and I found myself equally so. My favourite part was when Moore blurted out the senator's email address and wanted this guy to get 10 million angry emails.
Meanwhile, I read this morning that a 4 year old boy in New Jersey shot and killed a 6 year old.
I would not want to live in the USA - and am not sure I want to visit ... the gun control issue there is ridiculous! Heads buried in the sand, for sure!
ReplyDeleteI have never understood the mind set, and I guess I never will.
ReplyDeleteI have fired a gun before, but have never felt the need to own one.
I did see the interview; obviously very touching and sincere. Those bereft folk need not have been the least bit apologetic in demanding more than they were merely asking.
ReplyDeleteIn the USA it's a "God given right" (to paraphrase Charlton Heston, former NRA president). Here it's a "privilege" earned by demonstrated competency, much like getting a driver's license.
In this age of entitlement with no responsibility stupidity reigns supreme!
Years ago I was visiting my sister in Missouri and in a theatre was sitting beside an American woman who asked me where I was from. When I told her Canada, she said she attempted to enter once by car, but that she had guns on her and we didn't allow guns! She was quite indignant that we wouldn't allow her in without permits etc. A mentality I will never understand!
ReplyDeleteI have fired a gun, and grew up in a house where there were riffles, however they were locked, out of reach and we were taught that they were for hunting only. I have no desire to own one today.