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| Gingerbread houses. Lucy Mercer/ A Cook and Her Books |
I
spent Friday morning in the cafeteria of my daughter’s school taking pictures
of sugared-up kids and their gingerbread creations (really frosting-coated milk cartons loaded with candy). It was a happy time in a
happy place. When I arrived at work a few hours later, the news started
trickling in about Newtown, Connecticut, and at first, I couldn’t believe it.
Of
course, I’ve heard enough of these stories – Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine,
to not be shocked that a young man brought an assault weapon to a school, but
the first stories reported only that the gunman was killed and a teacher hurt. The
news only got worse - the families of 20 children and 6 grown-ups will bury
their loved ones this week before Christmas and if there was someone, somewhere
who felt safe from gun violence, surely they do not feel safe now.
My
heart breaks for these families and this community – Newtown seems an
idyllic small town in many ways. My heart breaks, too, for our country as we
again try to make sense of a senseless act and look to our elected officials to
do something about gun violence in this country.
If
I have a disappointment in President Obama’s first term and the recent election
season is that gun control was not an issue. The gun lobby’s hold over our
political process is pretty clear that even when a congresswoman is attacked
and a federal judge killed with these military-style weapons, the subject is not broached. And
this year, add 12 moviegoers in Aurora, three holiday shoppers in Oregon and 26
students and faculty in Newtown to the toll.
In
October at the height of the election season, Thomas Friedman wrote in the New
York Times about the silly and stupid rhetoric some candidates were tossing
out about women’s rights.
“In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and
be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of
semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a
Colorado theater.”
“Pro-life”
can mean only one thing: “respect for the sanctity of life.” And there is no
way that respect for the sanctity of life can mean we are obligated to protect
every fertilized egg in a woman’s body, no matter how that egg got fertilized,
but we are not obligated to protect every living person from being shot with a
concealed automatic weapon.” - Thomas Friedman, New York Times, "Why I am Pro-Life."
I
believe this to be true.
Here
in the gun-loving South, people are of fond of saying “Guns don’t kill people.
People kill people.” And I agree – mentally unstable, desensitized, soul-less,
suicidal young men with access to SWAT-style assault weapons do indeed kill
people, efficiently and with maximum pain. The high-powered rifle that the
gunman used on Friday was banned for
a decade until 2004, when Congress chose not to renew the assault weapons
ban.
Although
the issue of gun control seems to get folks recalling their rights and
amendments, I think we can agree that there are dangerous, desensitized
young men with access to weapons that can cause mass casualty. This tragic
destruction can and has happened in just the past two years at malls, grocery
stores, public schools, movie theaters, towns small and large. There was a time
when I felt safe at each of these locations; now I find myself noting emergency
exit signs. I’m not overreacting – there was a shooting in a play area at our
local suburban mall just a few years ago. My community is no different than
Newtown or Aurora. It could easily happen here.
I
try my best to keep my political opinions to myself. These pages are for far
lighter material – recipes and pictures of food and family. But it’s my bully
pulpit, too, and this subject is far too important for me to ignore. These tragic
stories will continue until this country does something about it. I don’t
pretend to know what the answer is, but I can certainly tell you what the
problems are – insufficient school security, inadequate mental health resources, lax gun control and a
stymied political process, for starters.
I
wept with President Obama as he read the names of Newtown’s dead. Still, my heavy
heart finds comfort in the promise behind these words:
"What
choice do we have? Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the
face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say
that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is
somehow the price of our freedom?"
“Surely we
can do better than this. We have an obligation to try.”
Mr. President, you have the gift of a second term, four years to make certain that Newtown is the last community to suffer the sudden, senseless and tragic loss of so many lives.
And dear readers, I’m
starting by signing this petition and maybe if enough folks sign it, our politicians and leaders will look beyond the next election and do what’s right.
We have an obligation to try.
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| First grade gingerbread houses. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books |
