Link: http://eblade.toledoblade.com/.pf/print/128674/1/20180812034
Text:
[h=3][/h][h=1]Taking aim at our people problem[/h][h=2][/h]BY MATT MARKEY BLADE OUTDOOR EDITOR
The body count from last weekend’s madness and mayhem in Chicago had yet to be finalized, when the rhetoric replay button was pushed. Politicians, celebrities, and pundits used social media and any soapbox or cluster of microphones and TV cameras they could assault to rail on about our obvious “gun problem.”
In the hours between 6 p.m. Aug. 3 and 11:59 p.m. Sunday, at least 74 people were shot in Chicago, including 12 who were killed. This happened in a city that has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. But in the midst of the chorus of calls for more legislation that seems to accompany every mass shooting or exceptionally gruesome weekend, one voice seemed to put the chaos in some degree of perspective.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, by his own words never one to miss an opportunity to use a serious crisis for political gain, did mention there are too many guns on the street, but he added this powerful rejoinder: “ ... and there is a shortage of values about what is right and what is wrong — what is acceptable, what is condoned, and what is condemned.”
With that phrase, I think the mayor discarded the obligatory orations and default talking points found in any post-tragedy script and went on to accurately identify the real villain behind all of this violence, crime, and lawlessness.
We have a people problem.
Certainly it is much easier to call it a gun problem, assemble a posse of lawyers, legislators, and activists and go after the gun manufacturers, the NRA, and anyone who has squeezed one eye shut in order to lock in on a target at a shooting range. You ratchet up a bunch of charges and try to sue them into oblivion.
But that does nothing to address the real issue. It is what human beings do to other humans that makes a summer weekend in Chicago such a bloody nightmare. It is that bankruptcy of values the mayor alluded to in his remarks.
At about the same time, we learned the horrific details of what the authorities allege had been going on inside that New Mexico desert compound made of wood pallets, old tires, and plastic sheets. Several deranged adults were housing 11 children in dreadful conditions at the site and they were thought to be training them to carry out school shootings. An AR-15 rifle, five 30 round magazines, and four loaded pistols were found at the site.
There were guns in the compound, but did they represent a gun problem, or was this ghastly setting evidence of our people problem?
If that training had gone on unabated, and eventually those young people were armed by these seriously disturbed individuals and carried out the school massacres that were on the agenda, this no doubt would have been classified as gun violence, and renewed the calls for more gun control. Are we foolish enough to think any amount of gun control — federal, state or local — would have caused these people to step back, reconsider, then cancel their planned slaughter?
Closer to home, many of us recall that grisly 24 hours in Toledo in June, 2012, when nine people were shot and two of them did not survive. Then in 2013, when a local apartment was sprayed with gunfire by gang members who were targeting a rival but got the wrong unit and killed a 1-year-old girl. Was that senseless loss of a young life simply the result of a gun problem, or was it a people problem — people with a wanton disregard for what is right and what is wrong.
In June, a Toledo pizza delivery driver was shot and killed in a robbery that netted the perpetrator 75 cents. Sadari Knighten was beloved by her family and in her workplace and community, but her life ended at 28. The respect for life and the respect for others have eroded from our society to the point where basic human decency is not so basic any longer, and we are confronted with a problem that extends well beyond any inanimate object such as a gun.
■ Is the opioid epidemic indicative of a syringe problem?
■ Does the rampant hacking, identity theft, and the laundry list of cyber crime point to an Internet problem?
■ When religious extremists strap explosives onto handicapped individuals, then send them into a crowded market where the charge is remotely detonated, is that a religion problem?
Evil in any form is a people problem, and what took place in Chicago last weekend is not adequately explained by terminology as simple as a “gun problem.” This pattern of carnage points to a widespread malignancy of the human condition.
You can legislate your brains out, but you can’t legislate morality, decency, and a respect for your fellow man. That has to come from within, from your soul, your faith, and the values you learned from your parents. In the upbringing of any child, there needs to be thousands of lessons in respect for your fellow man, and countless examples of what is acceptable behavior.
It seems in every discussion about guns, usually the conversation quickly degenerates into verbal arm wrestling, where both sides are well-equipped with their own bandolier of “facts.” I won’t dive into that murky pool, choosing instead to say a person’s right to own firearms for hunting, target shooting, or self-defense should never be abridged under the disguise of taking guns out the hands of criminals. Criminals have no respect for the law, the greater good, or the lives of those they prey upon. That’s how they ended up looking into the camera, with that height chart framing their faces.
To further clarify the issue, what the military uses are weapons specifically designed to kill other humans, and those are not to be tossed into the same bin and confused with the firearms used for hunting or self-defense. I see no need to own military-grade equipment, or anything as singularly purposed for destruction as bump stocks. If I can’t stop an intruder from harming my family with a conventional firearm, then I shouldn’t own one.
Guns also never belong in the hands of kids, convicted felons, or mentally disturbed individuals. To ignore that protection is to ask for a torrent of more people problems, but in so many mass shootings and other heinous acts, the red flags were everywhere and still nobody said anything.
Through this all, I’ve grown weary of the sanctimonious braying by politicians and celebrities who live behind iron gates and high walls and are always surrounded by armed security, all while they preach hypocritical harangue about the need for more strict gun control. Their words are the much more consequential 21st century translation of “let them eat cake” to the unwashed masses.
Before we have another Columbine, another Parkland, or another unbelievably bloody weekend in Chicago, let’s admit the devil in every one of these tragedies is our serious people problem. You can’t fix it with laws, mandatory jail sentences, or endless rants that target law-abiding gun owners. It’s tougher to solve than that, this people problem of ours.
Contact Blade outdoors editor
Matt Markey at:
mmarkey@theblade.com,
or 419-724-6068
Text:
Printed: August 12, 2018
[h=3][/h][h=1]Taking aim at our people problem[/h][h=2][/h]BY MATT MARKEY BLADE OUTDOOR EDITOR
The body count from last weekend’s madness and mayhem in Chicago had yet to be finalized, when the rhetoric replay button was pushed. Politicians, celebrities, and pundits used social media and any soapbox or cluster of microphones and TV cameras they could assault to rail on about our obvious “gun problem.”
In the hours between 6 p.m. Aug. 3 and 11:59 p.m. Sunday, at least 74 people were shot in Chicago, including 12 who were killed. This happened in a city that has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. But in the midst of the chorus of calls for more legislation that seems to accompany every mass shooting or exceptionally gruesome weekend, one voice seemed to put the chaos in some degree of perspective.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, by his own words never one to miss an opportunity to use a serious crisis for political gain, did mention there are too many guns on the street, but he added this powerful rejoinder: “ ... and there is a shortage of values about what is right and what is wrong — what is acceptable, what is condoned, and what is condemned.”
With that phrase, I think the mayor discarded the obligatory orations and default talking points found in any post-tragedy script and went on to accurately identify the real villain behind all of this violence, crime, and lawlessness.
We have a people problem.
Certainly it is much easier to call it a gun problem, assemble a posse of lawyers, legislators, and activists and go after the gun manufacturers, the NRA, and anyone who has squeezed one eye shut in order to lock in on a target at a shooting range. You ratchet up a bunch of charges and try to sue them into oblivion.
But that does nothing to address the real issue. It is what human beings do to other humans that makes a summer weekend in Chicago such a bloody nightmare. It is that bankruptcy of values the mayor alluded to in his remarks.
At about the same time, we learned the horrific details of what the authorities allege had been going on inside that New Mexico desert compound made of wood pallets, old tires, and plastic sheets. Several deranged adults were housing 11 children in dreadful conditions at the site and they were thought to be training them to carry out school shootings. An AR-15 rifle, five 30 round magazines, and four loaded pistols were found at the site.
There were guns in the compound, but did they represent a gun problem, or was this ghastly setting evidence of our people problem?
If that training had gone on unabated, and eventually those young people were armed by these seriously disturbed individuals and carried out the school massacres that were on the agenda, this no doubt would have been classified as gun violence, and renewed the calls for more gun control. Are we foolish enough to think any amount of gun control — federal, state or local — would have caused these people to step back, reconsider, then cancel their planned slaughter?
Closer to home, many of us recall that grisly 24 hours in Toledo in June, 2012, when nine people were shot and two of them did not survive. Then in 2013, when a local apartment was sprayed with gunfire by gang members who were targeting a rival but got the wrong unit and killed a 1-year-old girl. Was that senseless loss of a young life simply the result of a gun problem, or was it a people problem — people with a wanton disregard for what is right and what is wrong.
In June, a Toledo pizza delivery driver was shot and killed in a robbery that netted the perpetrator 75 cents. Sadari Knighten was beloved by her family and in her workplace and community, but her life ended at 28. The respect for life and the respect for others have eroded from our society to the point where basic human decency is not so basic any longer, and we are confronted with a problem that extends well beyond any inanimate object such as a gun.
■ Is the opioid epidemic indicative of a syringe problem?
■ Does the rampant hacking, identity theft, and the laundry list of cyber crime point to an Internet problem?
■ When religious extremists strap explosives onto handicapped individuals, then send them into a crowded market where the charge is remotely detonated, is that a religion problem?
Evil in any form is a people problem, and what took place in Chicago last weekend is not adequately explained by terminology as simple as a “gun problem.” This pattern of carnage points to a widespread malignancy of the human condition.
You can legislate your brains out, but you can’t legislate morality, decency, and a respect for your fellow man. That has to come from within, from your soul, your faith, and the values you learned from your parents. In the upbringing of any child, there needs to be thousands of lessons in respect for your fellow man, and countless examples of what is acceptable behavior.
It seems in every discussion about guns, usually the conversation quickly degenerates into verbal arm wrestling, where both sides are well-equipped with their own bandolier of “facts.” I won’t dive into that murky pool, choosing instead to say a person’s right to own firearms for hunting, target shooting, or self-defense should never be abridged under the disguise of taking guns out the hands of criminals. Criminals have no respect for the law, the greater good, or the lives of those they prey upon. That’s how they ended up looking into the camera, with that height chart framing their faces.
To further clarify the issue, what the military uses are weapons specifically designed to kill other humans, and those are not to be tossed into the same bin and confused with the firearms used for hunting or self-defense. I see no need to own military-grade equipment, or anything as singularly purposed for destruction as bump stocks. If I can’t stop an intruder from harming my family with a conventional firearm, then I shouldn’t own one.
Guns also never belong in the hands of kids, convicted felons, or mentally disturbed individuals. To ignore that protection is to ask for a torrent of more people problems, but in so many mass shootings and other heinous acts, the red flags were everywhere and still nobody said anything.
Through this all, I’ve grown weary of the sanctimonious braying by politicians and celebrities who live behind iron gates and high walls and are always surrounded by armed security, all while they preach hypocritical harangue about the need for more strict gun control. Their words are the much more consequential 21st century translation of “let them eat cake” to the unwashed masses.
Before we have another Columbine, another Parkland, or another unbelievably bloody weekend in Chicago, let’s admit the devil in every one of these tragedies is our serious people problem. You can’t fix it with laws, mandatory jail sentences, or endless rants that target law-abiding gun owners. It’s tougher to solve than that, this people problem of ours.
Contact Blade outdoors editor
Matt Markey at:
mmarkey@theblade.com,
or 419-724-6068
