If Now Now, Then When? Part 2

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?" -   Hillel the Elder

This was the question I asked after the Sandy Hook massacre. If 20 small children – practically babies and six adults could be shot down by an active shooter who was mentally unstable but was able to get access to his mother’s guns – shouldn’t we do something about gun control?  If the innocent faces of those children were not enough for a grieving nation to act with a Democratic President and Congress, then when would be the right time? 

It seemed like a slam dunk to get guns out of the hands of the wrong people-to

get stronger background checks – to limit the age that a person could get a gun.  But even as that Christmas in 2012 seemed less merry because there were now 20 more angels in heaven but not on earth to open their presents and six less adults to offer holiday cheer as we as a nation failed again to pass any real gun control measures.  The pull of the NRA was just too great and their campaign contributions too grand.  The misguided voices of their members too strong to weaken the will and effectively castrate any politician that wanted to stand up to them.  It was a heart-breaking Christmas that year but unimaginable in the grief for the families that would never tuck their babies in a night, never to hear “I love you Mommy and Daddy!”  

Am I laying it on too f*cking thick?!! Goddamn right I am – because I hate these senseless shootings – it makes me shake with anger and yet we keep allowing this happen time and time again.   According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been at least 241 school shootings nationwide since Sandy Hook. In those episodes, 450 people were shot, 149 of whom were killed – these numbers include the Santé Fe and Clayton shootings which occurred on May 18th. 

So, when are we going to wake up and decide that the five million members of the NRA do not speak for the 326 million people who live in the United States?  Moreover, they apparently don’t speak for most gun owners.  According to recent estimates, one in three people are gun owners which puts the total number at about 75 million.  With 5 million members, the NRA represents just 6.6% of gun owners.  Many of those people who have firearms in their house feel that the NRA is way off base.  So why do politicians continue to cow-tow to them? 

In Georgia, our own Lt. Governor Casey Cagle punished Delta Airlines because they were not going to honor the NRA discount anymore after the Parkland shooting.   Cagle’s response was to take away the tax benefits that Delta receives until they reinstated the discount.  This was a brilliant move because Atlanta was on the short list of cities that Amazon would use for their second headquarters.  But since that little stunt as a bow to the NRA and the punishment for not extending the discount – Georgia has probably lost an employer who could bring thousands of jobs to the state.

Sure – they throw money at candidates and gave 21 million to the Trump campaign but it is selling your soul out to stop keeping reasonable gun laws in force like reversing the ban assault weapons which went into effect in 1994 under President Clinton but was reversed under George W. Bush in 2004. More common-sense measures like banning bump stocks which turn semi-automatic weapons to automatic and was used in the Las Vegas shooting last year have withered because of NRA opposition depending on which way the wind blows (initially they did support the ban).  Now Oliver North, that paragon of virtue who in the 1980’s sold illegal weapons to the Iranians and then gave the funds to the

Contras in Nicaragua and is a former FOX commentator is the new NRA President.  He seems perfect because the guy’s reputation for being a scumbag is pretty solidified.

As a mother, I hate that in the back of my mind as I send my 17-year-old to school is the silent prayer that I will see her home safely.  She’s not a police officer or a soldier where something like an attack might be part of a day’s work – she’s a f*cking high school student. She’s going to school with other children and teachers who don’t get paid enough to teach much less get training to take down an active shooter.

I used to work security at a synagogue in Atlanta and with the world being what it is and with a school on the premises – we would discuss active shooter drills.  We even did one with a police officer dressed as a sniper and discussed how to react.  As much as I thought I was prepared when he came into the office with a ski mask – instead of getting out as fast as I could – I cowered under my desk and was marked “dead.”  It taught me a good lesson – don’t under any circumstance get yourself in a place where you can’t get out.  One good video that I have reviewed which is called Run, Hide, Fight and is used by several law enforcement agencies to train people how to try to save themselves in an active shooter situation.  Click here to look at the video.   It gives you some sound advice how to survive something so horrific.

One of the things that has bothered me when I hear about these shootings is that there didn’t seem to be a plan much past putting the school on lockdown.   The kids are being trained to hide under their desks which as I found out made me a sitting duck.   The teachers need to be trained if they cannot safely get the kids out of the classroom to a safe space, how to block the door and arm themselves with mace or scissors and fight like hell to keep the perpetrator out. It’s not something that might come naturally but just like a fire drill – once you practice it a few times – it becomes second nature.  In the Virginia Tech shooting, the students who blocked the doors had the highest survival rate.  Even something as simple as a door wedge can keep someone from entering a room and save lives.

It’s a given that our national law makers will probably make a good show of saying we need responsible gun laws and how this should never happen again until sadly it happens again.   Perhaps over the summer, schools can do for themselves what lawmakers won’t do – address the problem head on and have a strategic plan.   In the confusion of the shooting in Parkland and other shootings, first responders wasted valuable time trying to find the perpetrator.   Why not install active shooter sensors that can detect gunfire and pinpoint where the perpetrator is during the shooting spree?  These systems can also alert the teachers and principals where the shooter is so they can plan escapes accordingly in real time.  

My prayer is that the schools in the Atlanta area as well as all across this nation end the school year without any more shootings.  But in the tragic aftermath of these shootings, we need to work together to find a solution.  Yes, better mental health services would help.  But as our President tried to weakly defend his stance at the NRA convention with false stats about stabbings in Europe, it’s not just about mental health – it’s the ease in which people in this country can get a gun either legally or by taking a parent’s or friends firearm. My daughter Amber and I took part in March for our Lives and it was a very powerful event.   There were all types of people and all ages – from toddlers to people in their 80’s and it was amazing that it was over 20,000 people in the streets of downtown Atlanta.  What struck me was that there were so few anti-protesters in favor of gun rights –  I saw two people.  I really think that going into the mid-terms – momentum is on our side.    What I observed is that for these new voters GOP = NRA and it might spell trouble for Republicans who don’t take a tougher stand on the NRA. 

It should be obvious that banning bump stocks, automatic and semi-automatic would lower these casualties – but sometimes obvious does not win and paranoia can make any reasonable argument seem like an enemy’s dictate.  Maybe mandatory smart guns would stop kids from are taking their parents’ weapons and turning them on schoolmates -maybe not - but it’s worth a try. Something needs to be done besides “our thoughts and prayers” because prayer without action means nothing.

But as I asked five and a half years ago after Sandy Hook, are we going look our collective paranoia in the face and decide to limit who can get guns?   How do we end this madness or are we just going to continue with the status quo until every city has an incident.   How do we look our children in the face and say “Yes, this is a safe place to live” when our innocents are being coldly struck down. We need to change the conversation and offer concrete solutions that can be acted on.  If not now, then when?

Bad Things and Good People

I had just finished doing my Zumba 2 for Wii and was standing in front of the TV sweating profusely when I heard that there had been a shooting in Aurora, Colorado.  This time it was at the midnight showing of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises and it was like a scene out of a horror movie.   It seemed crazy, all those people going to have a fun evening out with their favorite super hero and then the unimaginable happened.   There was panic, fear, and yet in those moments of confusion, incredible bravery as strangers helped strangers survive.    On the news, you've seen family members' faith in God unshaken even as they stand by the bedside on of the victims and you wonder how they can be so calm and have the wisdom to forgive someone who shattered their lives?   Time and time again, tragedy after tragedy, you see good people at their very best after the dealing with the reality of the absolute worst. 

You probably know the horrific details of the shooting so I'll only deal with the numbers, at this point, 12 people dead and 58 wounded from bullets and the gas bomb that this whack job used to keep people from being able to leave the theater easily.   The victims range from a three month old baby to a man who was celebrating his 27th birthday.   It's another inconceivable act from the mind of someone so emotionally disturbed and evil who wanted to spread his misery to others.   It's emotional terrorism whether it's part of a political or religious group - it's designed to make us feel scared and helpless - to shake us so that we don't do what we love like going to a movie because we're afraid someone will hurt us.   It reminds us how fragile life is and that we can't take anything for granted. If anything good can come from this tragedy, maybe realizing that you need to tell the people that you love how much you love them because - well - you just never know.   But if I know my fellow Americans, and I've been one for almost 50 years - I know we'll raise past this, hopefully learn from it and work to make sure it never happens again. 

I was just a few months old when President Kennedy was shot.   That act also was designed to make us scared and ask:  if the President of the United States is not safe, then who among us is?   The heartbreaking image of a young John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's casket is an image that is burned into most American's collective unconscious even if they weren't around to actually see it live.  The assassination happened almost 49 years ago around Thanksgiving and I'm sure that many people in 1963 thought that they could never enjoy another Thanksgiving after what the Kennedys and the country had been through.   Few people felt like having Christmas and probably muddled through as best they could to keep some sense of normalcy for the sake of the children.  I'm sure that the prayers on that New Year's Eve is that 1964 would bring better times.    Ironically in my family it did, my sister Sharon was born just nine months after that fateful day in Dallas.   It occurred to me one day in the mid 1990's on my way to work on Metro-Rail in Miami, that perhaps one part of the divine purpose of something as tragic as John F. Kennedy's passing is that we all need to connect on a deeper level - to reassure ourselves that life goes on.   A year later, people were still missing the young president and his family in the White House, but Thanksgiving eventually came back to realizing just what you had to be thankful for.   Like loving the time you have with the people you love because sometimes there are no do overs. 

I remember when the Columbine shootings happened - Max and I just had to turn off the TV after a while because school is a place that a child should be safe and the reality of what was happening in real time as it happened was just to horrible to conceive.  Amber was just two then and we had just moved up to Georgia.   I thought about how I was glad that she was sleeping in her room at home after were we could keep an eye on her and thanking God that for that moment in time I had that sort of control - to keep my child safe in my arms but knowing I won't always be able to keep her that way.   As the days, weeks and months after the Columbine shootings occurred you saw a community and people all over the world come together and send well wishes to the children and teachers who had been victimized.  Strangers were raising money to help the victims and their families because it helped them and you heal.  The end result is that it spurred closer scrutiny at dress codes, school security and threats posted on-line which has prevented similar atrocities from happening.   

Max and I also saw 9/11 happen live on TV - just after Charlie Gibson had finished his interview with Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York who was once a princess and how she had made a real mess of her life on Good Morning America.   Those last few seconds of normalcy were the ones you take for granted just like the night before when our family had gone to Golden Corral with five year old Amber and nine month old Daniel.  We, like most Americans on that September 10, 2001, had no idea that was the last dinner we'd have before the country felt like it had been kicked in the stomach and thousands of people would die in coordinated attacks.   I remember then that we had to turn off the TV after about 11:00 a.m. because it was just too much to comprehend.  I kept on thinking that it was a bad Bruce Willis movie and that at the end - the credits would roll and life would go back to normal.   But there would never be that same normal again.    There were grounded airplanes and travelers not stuck for hours in one place, but days with limited supplies because some very small airports now had hundreds or thousands of travelers.   The townspeople in these cities rallied and brought food to these very weary travelers - unlikely friendships were struck out of that tragedy as total strangers bore their souls to each other out of fear and loneliness.   Everyone felt bad, everyone had seen the news - everyone hurt and as a collective we were there for each other.  

I remember working at Actor's Express in Atlanta and coming out of the theater and seeing a young woman in tears a few days after the attacks.  I didn't have to ask why, I knew.  I instinctively gave her a hug and told her it would be alright as my own tears fell to the pavement.   The woman noticed Daniel in the stroller and we started to talk about how fast babies grow and for a moment - it felt like before 9/11 - before your sense of security being seared off your soul.   She got Daniel to smile and for him to hold her hand.  She was grateful to have someone to talk to as she waited for her husband to pick her up - he was running late and that added to her anxiety.   He arrived, we hugged again and she got in the car.  I never saw the woman again but I'll never forget that quick connection to the mutual pain we all felt - my God - how could you not?   After that, I frequently brought the baby Daniel with me to work during those tough days and weeks.  He was a welcome respite from all the terrible news that was going on then.   He would be passed from lap to lap, cheerfully eating his Cheerios and playing with his baby keys.    He was a happy baby because his world was exactly the same as it was before 9/11.  The people who worked at the theater needed to touch that sweet innocence - that new beginning of hope that babies bring.   I imagine that during the days after the Kennedy assassination, I played the same role - being that infantile philosopher that showed the world that life goes on even when everything looks bleak because it has to - life is like that.  It's self renewing and having that knowledge can pull you out of the darkest times.   

In these first few days after such a frightening event, saying prayers for the victims helps momentarily but then you just feel like nothing makes sense.   You can still have your belief in God, but question how this could have been part of his/her plan.   A six year old and a sailor should be sharing ice cream and not the fate of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Why did that man have to die on his 27th birthday on a night when he was tweeting on how psyched he was to see The Dark Knight?   Why didn't fate step in and stop James Holmes on the way to the theater?   How could something as simple as going to a movie become more hazardous than traveling down a hostile road in Iraq?   I'm not sure if there is a greater plan at work here - maybe it's just a wake up call to finally get some responsible legislation on gun control.    Because this time it wasn't about kids in school, or a President - it could have been any of us sitting in a theater trying to forget about life to awhile - even someone who belongs to the NRA.   

This weekend, I'm thinking about those other tough times in history when we've been tested and we've come back stronger than before.   We support each other - churches and other religious organizations see up ticks in attendance and for that moment and let's face it - the moment doesn't last forever - but we're united because that's the way it needs to be right now.   People will enjoy going to movies again and not be afraid.  After 9/11- Broadway struggled but in a few months was back to the same audiences it had before the attacks and unlike the airlines, without a government subsidy.  It took time for the airlines to come back but now there's metal detectors, air marshals and security delays that most people don't mind because it's what we need to be safe.  It's been almost 11 years since 9/11 and yet their has not been a successful attack - just thwarted plans because of that security.    People understand that need and don't complain because we don't want to go back to that horrible day in September 2001.  

Good people will always trump the bad - that's just who we are.    There are the heroes from that night who don't want the attention and were just glad to be there to lend a hand and just had enough insane courage to make a difference.   There are good people out there trying to do the right things for the victims of the crime - like the United Way of Denver that is taking donations for the victims and local churches holding vigils and offering comfort because that's just what they do.   So hold your children tighter, kiss your partner harder and love the time you have together - because bad people never triumph and the Dark Knight will rise again.