Violence

A few years ago, we went out for a light supper. Corner Bakery in Warrenville was our destination. We traveled down Winfield Road and turned into the northern out lots of Cantera Business Park, the part that houses several restaurants and the entertainment/theater complex. Among the restaurants, Corner Bakery. To get there we had to wend our way along a couple of access roads with stop signs. We came up behind a slow-moving trail of vehicles headed by a pick up truck. One by one the cars turned off. Finally, it was our turn to follow directly behind the truck.

It was a slow go. Very slow. I tapped my horn lightly. No response. Finally, we got to a stop sign. We stopped. And didn’t start up. I laid on the horn. No response. I moved to go around him. He moved forward a foot or two, matching my progress. A tit for tat game. Finally, I floored it and zipped past him. He followed. Into the parking lot of Corner Bakery. He menaced us. Shaking his hands and arms. And yelling. Taunting us. I entered the restaurant and notified the staff to call the police if he entered behind us.

My only thought was he was drunk and clearly mad at the world, enticing a reaction from anyone and everyone. My mind went to imagining violence. Was he capable of it? Were we in danger?

No. We weren’t in danger. He was a harmless, most likely intoxicated ne’er do well. Mad at the world and trying to get a rise out of others. He did that!

I wonder about this incident years later. To me it was a visible show of control and force over my freedom. It was a physical act; in real time. Not violent but an act that could easily have evolved to violence. No shoving of bodies; just intimidation by vehicle and positioning.

And so a man walks into the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and with an assault rifle shoots 50 people – to death; another 60 wounded. Another man walks into a church on Sunday morning in Charleston and shoots 9 people dead; still more wounded. Yet another man walks into a small Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and shoots 56 people, killing 26 and seriously injuring the remaining wounded. Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut – 20 dead by a lone gunman, mostly kids but three staff murdered. More places, more bodies, more guns used to kill more people.

In America. The land of the free. Free to go to school, to church, to shopping malls, to work, to a nightclub. Free, too, to walk around with a gun, a rifle, an AR-15 assault weapon, and shoot to kill and maim innocent people. Because you can. You are free in a free society to kill other free people. It is our birthright. Right?

WRONG! It is no one’s right to freely harm or kill another person when self-defense from a clear and immediate threat is absent.

You and I do not have the freedom to do this type of thing. We are not free to use our cars and trucks as weapons, either.

Yet there are people who sincerely believe that the US Constitution guarantees our right to own guns, bear arms, and use them without protective controls.

That is the crux of the argument.

I say it is time we curbed the ‘freedom to kill and intimidate with armaments’.

Just like other items with potential for danger, safety concerns drive legislation to protect innocent members of the public. It is time to do that for guns and ownership and use of same.

Congress has the duty to do this. The NRA has no power or authority over Congress. None. It is Congress who relinquishes its authority and hands it over to the NRA for cash contributions for their re-election; and if they don’t do this, the NRA fields a candidate to depose the sitting Congressperson.

Congress created the beast. It is their job to slay it.

Now.

November 8, 2017