It is the day after Halloween, so I wanted to write a scary blog, and I couldn’t think of anything scarier than a massacre of 11 praying people by someone with an semi-automatic assault rifle.
The Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929 (only 7 dead) resulted in a 1934 law restricting the sale, registering the owner (including fingerprints), limiting the transport, and setting up a federal government record of Tommy guns. The whole process of buying a Tommy gun took about 4 months. The law (it was not a ban) worked for Tommy guns. They became too expensive, too scarce, and too much of a hassle to own, and they have disappeared from our everyday life. Maybe that law happened because a majority of people regarded the Chicago mobsters as criminals.
So why not pass effective federal restrictions on the sale and ownership of assault rifles? Let’s acknowledge that people who use them to kill other people are just criminals. Lets stop all the noise and emotional overlay about the shooter’s motives and background. Just call him “a criminal” and restrict access for future criminals to his weapon of choice. Such assault rifle restrictions (not a ban) might, at least, successfully reduce the body count for any one particular future rampage. There are plenty of other kinds of guns around that the mentally deranged, political extremist, terrorist, or even just a ticked-off jilted lover can use, so no one’s constitutional right will be abridged.
On the other hand, the October 2018 Philadelphia synagogue massacre somehow doesn’t seem all that scary. After all, we have had similar massacres in night clubs, Southern churches, rock concerts, movie theaters, and elementary schools. Some of us may have kind of “gotten used to it”. Sort of like that old story of the frog sitting in a pot of water getting hotter and hotter on the stove burner, and the frog, not sensing the heat increase by degrees, just sits there until he is boiled up.
“By Degrees” is a song written by Mark Erelli that relates that “frog in hot water” story to our epidemic of gun violence. Other famous singer-songwriters, Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, Josh Ritter, Lori McKenna, and Anais Mitchell join him in singing it. Gabby Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence is helping to distribute it as a digital copy. You can go to www.bydegreessong.com to download it while you watch a video of the lyrics. All of the $4.69 and any additional money you wish to donate goes directly to the Gabby Giffords fund.
Go to the By Degrees website, and click the “GET THE SONG” button. This will take you to Giffords’ Act Blue donation page, where you can pay any amount you like for the song, and you will immediately receive a thank you email with a link to download the track.
BY DEGREES by Mark Erelli
When I take a look around me sometimes I wish I was blind
Feels like something sacred’s dying, one headline at a time
I can’t tear myself away, no I just stare in disbelief
You can learn to live with anything when it happens by degrees
I’ve seen every head bowed down as if lost in private prayer
I’ve seen the phones in every hand, seen the long and vacant stares of souls gone numb,
thumbing through each ceaseless, changing feed
You can learn to live with anything when it happens by degrees
I’ve seen talking heads shout back and forth across some great divide
Against a map of red and blue, points of view so cut and dried
But when you look into the mirror what color country do you see?
Where you can learn to live with anything when it happens by degrees
I’ve seen the flags at half-staff as the nation mourned and moaned
I’ve seen the stars and bars a-flyin’ proud above the state house dome
For the Charleston nine we sing “I once was blind, but now I see”
We can learn to live with anything when it happens by degrees
I’ve seen little hands on little shoulders, children in a line
I’ve seen them led away from school as the shots rang out inside
And I thought something had to change but somehow it’s become routine
We can learn to live with anything when it happens by degrees
I’ve seen sadness seep into my heart, each day a little more
This darkness growing so familiar, I can’t recall what came before
My children’s faces filled with questions, looking up expectantly
And I don’t know what to tell them
I can’t bring myself to tell them
That you can learn to live with anything when it happens by degrees.
As Mark says, “I am under no illusions that my song will solve the problem of gun violence. But I have seen what doing nothing does and want to do something. I’m a songwriter and musician, so I did the only thing I knew how to do, as good as I could do it. I appreciate your support and urge you do what you can to support the cause against gun violence.
AND DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!
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