Guns and Children

I could not watch the news last night.  The coverage of the most recent school shootings in Florida chilled me to my core.  I thought of all the normal mornings that happened in the houses of those victims.  The things that parents meant to say and waited till after school. The things kids meant to say but that slipped their minds as they rushed to find homework, permission slips and lunch cash.  Lives that changed in the blink of an eye, never to be the same.  I look at my kids and can't imagine how i would go on if that happened to us.  I know you have to go on.  I don't know how.

I'm filled with anger that a country like ours can not find a way to keep our most treasured resource--human life--safe.  I come from a family of hunters.  My dad hunted every year--deer, rabbit, birds.  I am not a stranger to guns and I don't fear guns per se.  I have shot them.  I have had 16 hours of handgun training as part of my black belt test for my first degree test. 

But guns have a place.  And certain guns don't in my mind, have a place in civilian hands.  Guns like that one used in Florida would be one such.  You don't hunt deer with that.  You hunt people.  We are so afraid that legislation will take away our second amendment rights that we are willing to risk exterminating ourselves.  We blame it on mental health issues instead of the fact that access to these weapons is far, far too easy.  The people who wrote that second amendment had single shot rifles that took a minute to load. They did not envision the advances in weaponry that are available today.

Most people with mental illness are not violent. But we cut services to this population and then stigmatize them further by blaming them for this situation.  Both parts of the tragic equation need to be addressed.  Until we do, I see no way to believe things will improve.

Scare Others

I keep wrestling with the changes I see in our country.  I have a hard time wrapping my head around the incredible unkindness that I see in people's posts.  In the policies they want our elected officials to enact.  In their support of the things that are being done.  This video came through my Facebook feed and I was appalled.  It was a Jimmy Kimmel bit where he brought together Dreamers and people who are totally against DACA. Google it if you haven't seen it.  I couldn't make the link copy properly into my blog and am not sufficiently techie to fool around with it.

Despite meeting a family and seeing their situation (woman who is an employed mother, a nursing student and the fiancee of a military National Guardsman) the vote was overwhelmingly to deport her.  I was stunned, because I think in my heart I always thought if people could put a name and a face to the situation they would think differently. That this would remove the "other-ness" that seems to permit some folks to look at the situation so harshly.  Kind of like when gay marriage was not legal and people would say "those people--but not YOU, YOU are different."  I wasn't different, but I was known.  I was a face that was everyday normal to them and therefore people who knew us well were apparently moved to consider our situation through a different lens.

I'm not sure they would now, because somehow the climate of our country has changed so radically.  I can't even wrap my head around it well to write cogently what I feel in my heart, so bear with me.  The closest thing I can come up with is that we used to operate on the American Dream.  A belief that virtually anything was possible and that it was not harmful to lift up others in their quest for their dream.  We believed  our possibilities, our resources were limitless and available to all and that we could achieve the most by working together for a greater good.

 Now, I best describe our country's mindset as operating from a position of scarcity and "otherness".  Somehow we have become convinced that there are not enough jobs in this country for both immigrants and american citizens to build healthy, meaningful lives.  If we allow immigrants ,we suspect our own jobs will be lost.  If we allow Dreamers a path to citizenship, we foresee negative consequences, a perceived reward being given to a child who had no choice in what happened to them. That perceived leniency is not possible because they are "other."  They are not Americans and therefore their existence is a threat.  I have yet to read an arguement that made sense to me of how and why this was a threat but clearly the perception is that they need to be punished. 

I know some Dreamers in my real life.  They are hard workers and have tried their best to correct a situation that was not of their making.  They want to continue to build their lives here. What truly IS a waste is to send smart, contributing young people away so they can make a living in some other country.  I can't see how that benefits us.

I know some immigrants in my real life.  A lot of them actually because of the work that I do.  They are hard working, contributing members of society.  They do jobs at pays that no one else wants to.  Frankly if they were not there to hire, I am not sure that the jobs would get filled because us real Americans are not all quite as fond of some of those types of jobs. We've got the education and the birth right but not an over whelming desire to pick the fruits in the apple orchards or the lettuce in the fields.  We sure like to eat though so this could become interesting somewhere down the road.

Why don't we think there is enough to go around?  My guess is that our scarcity model is fueled ironically by the excessive consumption that is encouraged by the advertising nowadays.  Ever try to buy a regular sized anything these days?  It's kind of hard because everything is large, supersized,etc.  So we spend more than we need, we want more than we need and we become hard hearted because we are all out to "get ours." 

A sad legacy for our children.