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The Screaming Moderate

We have to make it stop

5/25/2022

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 I shot a gun. Once.

My brother was a target shooter. Many years ago, I went with him to his club and he offered me his handgun to fire. I refused. He asked again so I figured, “why not?”

I took aim at the target.

When I pulled the trigger, it was as if the bullet left the barrel in slow motion. I watched it fly in slow motion as it headed toward the target.

I felt a tremendous sense of power in the milliseconds I followed that bullet. It barely hit the target, just striking the edge. I missed like the beginner I was.  

That feeling of power though was strong.

That feeling of power was so strong, so visceral, that I never again picked up a gun in my life.

Ever.

I can only imagine the feeling of power an 18-year-old must get from firing an AR15, chosen rifle of most mass shooters. If I felt that way from a low caliber handgun, what must it feel like using a rifle that can be turned into an automatic weapon by adding a bump stock?

Such power.

Life and death power.

Now, imagine that person with psychological problems. Because that’s a given for anyone heading off with a goal of killing  Blacks, or Browns, or Asians or Jews,  or children excited about the school year’s end and the anticipation of a season of swimming and fun.

Imagine.

But we don’t have to imagine because it’s happened too many times. A phrase we utter with each  mass shooting  -- "too many times."

Did you know that since Buffalo when 10 people were murdered – 11 days ago – there have been 13 mass shootings in this country?

Add in yesterday’s tragic murder of 21 mostly children, and that’s more than one a day, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

We’ve listened to presidents of both parties decry this violence, call for common sense gun control and, always, offer thoughts and prayers. We cry about the United States being the only country in the world with this problem.

And then there’s silence.

And no action.

Until the next one.

Rank-and-file Americans, most Democrats in Congress and a handful of Senate Republicans support some form of common sense gun control. But nothing ever gets passed.

About 90 percent of Americans and nearly 75 percent of National Rifle Association members support stronger controls on guns.

No one is advocating eliminating the Second Amendment. Many, mostly Republicans, scream "they want to take away your right to own guns" whenever putting a limit on assault weapons or anything that isn’t a sport gun or rifle comes up.

Trust me, as good a job as the founders were who signed the Constitution in 1787, fresh off a revolution, they never could have foreseen many of the issues that we face in 2022. How could they?

Still, no one seriously believes we can or should eliminate the Second Amendment, even if it is replaced with something more “modern” in scope, as some have discussed.

Even if someone wanted to do that, it would take years to happen.

We have until tomorrow.

We cry and scream every time someone, filled with hate for whatever idiotic reason guns down a church full of people offering him solace, or a school full of children looking forward to a life full of tomorrows, or a supermarket filled with people shopping for a birthday cake for their son.

We plead every time for congressional action.  Gun owners and non-gun owners alike.  People who shoot or hunt regularly support it. People who have never pulled a trigger support it.

Even those who have fired a gun. Once.

We have to make it stop.


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Democracy is threatened in many ways

5/18/2022

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As the headlines keep bouncing us from right to left and upside down, maybe confusing us in so many ways, there are some things we need to remain focused on – our Constitutional rights.

For example, the extreme right wing in this country, led by white supremacists and right-wing TV celebrities (rantings equal ratings) is saying the “Great Replacement Theory” is concocted by the “elite” who want to replace good, white Americans with black and brown immigrants for the craven goal of acquiring enough new voters to keep the Democratic Party in office for, well, forever I guess.

The fact is what these folks see as the conspiratorial Great Replacement Theory is simply the country that they say they love doing what the country was created to do: welcome immigrants with open arms just as, let’s say, those espousing the  Great Replacement Theory’s ancestors were greeted.

It has happened over and over in our history and it’s happening again. People who feel oppressed or threatened or who want to taste freedom flock here for a chance at a better life. Just as our ancestors did from all over the world.

Another thing that keeps us bouncing between headlines is abortion. I’m no lawyer and I’m no religious fanatic but it appears to me that what the Supreme Court is poised to do – overturn Roe v. Wade – is interfering with my constitutional rights. More women’s than mine, of course. First, the Constitution gives us freedom of religion. We are free to worship whatever God we choose. Or not. That’s a given under the Constitution.

Yet, a minority is trying to force their religious beliefs on mine. If the Court overturns Roe it takes that right away a right from Jews, and other religious groups that do not oppose choice.

Whatever “they” want to say, this is a religious freedom issue, to me. If choice is outlawed by the Court, Jewish folks’ right to choose is gone. Our right to practice our religion is taken away. True, too, for the Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, United Methodists, the National Baptist Convention and Buddhism. Some of those do call for limits on when an abortion can be conducted.

That’s the religious side of the issue. On a general support/not support polling issue, about 70 percent of America’s population favor maintaining Roe.

I’m not sure what exactly we’re fighting for or against but religious rights. Under what has been a precedent for 50 years each religion had their choice whether to have or not have an abortion.  

Now we have Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who every day focuses on his likely campaign for the presidency in a couple of years, who yesterday signed legislation that outlaws protests outside private residences in Florida. Once again, a minority trying to take away a Constitutional right – freedom of speech. The new law makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to picket or protest outside a person’s home to “harass or disturb” that person.

You’ll recall a couple of weeks ago in Washington, D.C., there were protests outside some Supreme Court justices’ homes when the draft opinion was leaked about the court’s current majority thinking on Row. We have a constitutional right to freedom of speech and assembly. We don’t have the right to trespass on someone’s property or do damage. But we do have a right to assemble on America’s streets to protest and exercise our freedom of speech. People in Florida now no longer do.

So, in just the few examples given here folks who reside on the far right wing of our country want to take away religious freedoms, freedoms of speech freedom to assemble.

These are just some of the freedoms that make our country the best in the world -- welcoming your ancestors and mine.

 And now the fabric of America is being threatened and giving us another reason that democracy is  under serious threat.


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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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