thoughts and prayers

Thursday Inspiration — Blowing in the Wind

Fandango10 Comments

For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has asked us to respond by either using the word “wind” or by going with anything else that we think fits. I decided to go with the word “wind,” and in particular, Bob Dylan’s song, “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Why? Well, back at the beginning of October of 2017, I was still reeling after a day of reading about and watching the news coverage on TV regarding the horrific and senseless mass shooting of concert attendees in Las Vegas. And now, six years later, I am still reeling from the horrific and senseless mass shooting last week in Lewiston, Maine.

I think about all of the mass shootings in America that have occurred prior to and since Las Vegas, and I’m reminded that we, as a nation, have done nothing to stem the tide of such senseless gun violence other than to offer our thoughts and prayers, which accomplishes nothing.

I’m also reminded of Bob Dylan’s song, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” especially the verse that goes, “Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see.”

How many times can we experience these mass shootings in our country and pretend that there is nothing we can do to address them? How long are we going to stick our collective heads in the sand like we are a nation of ostriches?

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Yes, ‘n’ how many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free
Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Yes, ‘n’ how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky
Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry
Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Image credit: Bing Image Creator.

More Senseless Deaths

Fandango34 Comments

Another day, another mass shooting at a school in the United States. Six dead, including three nine-year old children. It marks the 13th school shooting in the United States so far in 2023.

Yesterday it was in Nashville. Where will it be today? Tomorrow? Next week? It’s anybody’s guess. But you know it will happen. You know that there will be more children who will die needlessly in this country.

At least 57 people have died in 38 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this month alone, with another 133 injured. And in the first three months of 2023, there have been 130 mass shootings. Incredibly, there have been more mass shootings in the United States than there have been days this year.

Politicians are, as usual, sending out their thoughts and prayers to the people of Nashville. I think it was Albert Einstein who was alleged to have said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. This reality of doing little more than sending out thoughts and prayers is absolutely insane.

I am mad as hell at the spineless GOP legislators who refuse to do anything about these mass shootings. Instead of proactively addressing the problem of the proliferation of guns in our nation, many red states politicians are, instead, loosening up the regulations and allowing open carry of loaded guns in more places with no permits required. WTF?

If Americans really want to make America great again, we need to start taking names and kicking asses. We need to vote NRA puppets out of office and replace them with legislators who support enacting stricter gun control laws, such as universal background checks and bans on assault weapons, in order to make it more difficult, not less difficult, for people to obtain guns and use them to commit violence.

Illustration by Golden Cosmos.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #166

Fandango57 Comments
FPQ

Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

It happened again. Yesterday, another mass shooting in the United States occurred just ten days after ten people were shot and killed in a supermarket in Buffalo. As of when I’m writing this, 18 students and a teacher were killed in a mass shooting at a school in the small Texas city of Uvalde. An 18-year-old Uvalde resident entered the school with a handgun and a rifle. Inside the school, according to Texas’ pro-gun governor, Greg Abbott, the teenage gunman “shot and killed — horrifically, incomprehensibly” more than 18 children and a teacher.

The gunman, who legally bought the weapons used in the attack shortly after his 18th birthday on May 16, was shot and killed by officers responding to the scene. Abbott added, “It is being reported that the subject shot his grandmother right before he went into the school.”

This massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States so far this year. The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization, counted at least 215 such shootings, defined as one in which four or more people were killed or injured, through mid-May. Today is the 145th day of the year, meaning that there has been an average of almost 1.5 mass shootings a day in America this year! Ponder that for a moment.

I am so pissed that I can hardly contain my anger and frustration. State governments all across the nation are passing laws making it easier for people to get guns, allowing both open carry and concealed carry. They are liberalizing or eliminating background checks. Gun sales in the United States are at an all-time high. Gun deaths are soaring. And our elected officials — particularly the Republicans — are sitting around with their thumbs up their asses offering their thoughts and prayer.

President Biden spoke about this heinous mass shooting in Texas, saying…

“As a nation we have to ask: When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? How many scores of little children, who witnessed what happened, must see their friends die as if they’re in a battlefield?

I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage. For God’s sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry.”

My provocative question this week is similar to what I asked last week after the Buffalo mass killings. I am looking for your reactions and thoughts about this kind of gun violence that is endemic in the United States.

Do you feel that President Biden’s plea to take action and to do something to stem the rising tide of gun violence in America have any impact? Or will lawmakers at both the federal and state levels do nothing more than offer their useless “thoughts and prayers,” which is all they ever do?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

Who Won the Week? 04/11/2021

Fandango23 Comments

FWWTWThe idea behind Who Won the Week is for you to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

Unlike last Sunday, where I was unable to choose a clear winner, this week was easy. The winner this week is Joe Biden, the President of the United States.With more mass shootings and a rise of gun violence in the country, and with Republicans in both Congress and state legislatures refusing to take any action to stem the tide of gun violence, other than with “thoughts and prayers,” Joe Biden acted. He issued a series of executive actions designed to address gun violence. And he pledged to push for sweeping changes to the country’s gun laws.

Biden said, “Gun violence in this country is an epidemic, and it’s an international embarrassment. The idea that we have so many people dying every single day from gun violence in America is a blemish on our character as nation.”

As president, there is very little that Biden can unilaterally do in this case, but he did sign executive actions this past Thursday focusing on some relatively “low hanging fruit.”

The DOJ will issue a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of “ghost guns.” Ghost guns are homemade weapons that are hard to trace and where gun kit buyers don’t have to submit to a background check.

The DOJ will also issue a proposed rule to make clear when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act.

It will also publish model “red flag” legislation for states. Red flag laws allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others.

The DOJ will also issue a new annual report on firearms trafficking, which is one way firearms are diverted into the illegal market where they can easily end up in the hands of dangerous individuals.

Biden nominated David Chipman, a veteran of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), where he spent 25 years as a special agent, to serve as ATF director. ATF is the key agency charged with enforcing our gun laws, and it needs a confirmed director in order to do the job to the best of its ability. But ATF has not had a confirmed director since 2015.

These executive actions are just a start — small steps — in the fight to do something about gun violence in America, but they sure beat thoughts and prayers.

What about you? Who (or what) do you think won the week?

Image credit: Anson Stevens-Bollen

Can You Believe…?

Fandango14 Comments

4BF474E4-5259-46AC-8B26-240B31F13E6A“A teenage gunman opened fire at a Southern California high school Thursday morning, killing two students and wounding three others, before shooting himself in the head, officials said.”

Yet another horrific, senseless, and likely preventable school shooting occurred yesterday. It barely made the national news, as such shootings are becoming all too common. And all of our elected representatives, or at least all of the Republican representatives, anyway, seem able to do is to send their thoughts and prayers.

Last night I was catching up on the comments on my FOWC with Fandango word prompt yesterday, where the word was “can.” One of the commenters, Christine Bialczak at Stine Writing, wrote a post in response to that prompt and it really moved me. She expressed the frustration that I, and so many of us in America, am feeling about all of these mass shootings, particularly at schools.

I want more people to read and to share Christine’s words, but my reblog button on my WordPress iPhone app still doesn’t seem to be working. So I’ve taken a screenshot of her post and am re-posting it here.1ED57E2E-EAB9-49B2-8B7D-475E63B4A600Please follow this link over to Christine’s post and share your thoughts with her. I also encourage you to reblog her post (if your reblog button works) so that as many people as possible will start asking these same questions and perhaps ask them of their elected representatives.