Uvalde

Uvalde has to be the worst school shooting at least four years.

It's bad enough that 21 individuals - 19 of them children, most of them Hispanic - were shot to death by a gunman with an AR-15 assault rifle in the elementary school of this Texas town.  Even worse was that the police decided not to force their way into the classroom where the gunman did his deed because he barricaded himself in the classroom and they made the decision not refrain from storming the room per the situation at hand.  It was the wrong decision.  The gunman kept shooting, and a couple of kids inside had called 911 on their cell phones for swift action from the police that never came.  The authorities are till trying to explain away their fatal mistake, changing their stories constantly.

Texas governor Greg Abbott says he is livid about how the police acted, but he has no right to complain, since he paid lip service to improving school safety measures in Texas and has not supported and will not support sensible gun-control measures.  And I'm not sure Beto O'Rourke, Abbott's Democratic electoral opponent, wins any points for disrupting an Abbott press conference to confront the governor directly on guns, since it probably came across to many voters as a shameless stunt to get free media.  I still suspect that Abbott will be re-elected this November, if only because Texas voters care more about inflation.

U.S. Senate Republican leader has asked Texas Republican senator John Cornyn to talk with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut about a possible deal on gun-safety measures.  But even something that modest us unlikely, given the weakened-but-still-potent National Rifle Association's hold on Republican senators.

Seen outside this weekend's National Rifle Association convention in . . . Houston.  Houston, Texas.

I've pretty much given up on this country.  How do I live with what's going on in These States?  How do I deal with it?  I can't . . . I can't. 😢 

Walk Right Out

Today was the day that school students all across America walked out of class to protest gun violence and the government's inability or unwillingness to do anything about it.  Not every school district in the country approved of the walkout - in some of them, students were threatened with disciplinary action if they took part in it - but the walkout went ahead as intended, and some students banned from taking part did so anyway despite threats of detention and even expulsion.

I'd like to think that this will lead to positive change as far as the easy purchase of guns in America , and in some cases it already has.  Many companies offering discounts to National Rifle Association members have severed ties with the NRA, including Atlanta-based Delta Airlines, which was punished with a bill passed by the Georgia state legislature to repeal its tax exemption on jet fuel. But the airline is sticking to its . . . jets.  Dick's Sporting Goods also stopped selling assault-style riffles, its CEO saying he could no longer offer them in his stores in good conscience.

This is all good and fine, but no one in Washington is getting the message, and even the White House, which initially proposed background checks for prospective gun buyers and  an increase in the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21, seems to have backed off.  But then, this is nothing new in the U.S.  Just when you think things are finally moving forward in this country, it suddenly resumes backsliding into inertia.

You Can't Please Anybody

The school shooting in Florida this past week - on February 14, 89 years to the day after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, which only goes to show you how mass shootings in this country are nothing new - have politicians demanding that something be done about gun control.  Martin O'Malley has been demanding that something be done for years.

I'm not going to comment on the Parkland shootings per se because I can't say any more about school shootings that I haven't already said.  But I would like to look at O'Malley's position on guns, if only to remind voters that we could have had a President who would have addressed the issues.  O'Malley promoted in the 2016 presidential campaign a plan to expand safeguards to all gun purchases, require a background check for every individual gun purchase, require fingerprint-based licenses for transfers and purchases, and mandate safety training and waiting periods for gun purchases. He also advocated an assault weapons ban (which he pushed through as governor of Maryland), a program for the government to work with gun manufacturers to stop the illegal trafficking of firearms, and stronger incentives for law enforcement to  uphold such measures.

It's this stand on firearms that has made O'Malley Public Enemy Number One with the National Rifle Association.

You'd think O'Malley would get plaudits for his gun policy from his fellow Democrats.  Well, he probably would - if he could only get past questions about his public-safety record as mayor of Baltimore. 

Jayne Miller of Baltimore TV station WBAL-TV has reported that two members the Baltimore Police Department's  Gun Trace Task Force, who were supposed to get illegal guns off the street, would steal money and drugs from drug dealers targeted by the force.   They were convicted on charges of racketeering and robbery.  Although this corruption has been going on since O'Malley left the mayor's office in Baltimore to become governor of Maryland in 2007, and although the Baltimore police were already one of the most corrupt police departments in urban America before O'Malley became mayor in 1999, this story simply gives O'Malley's critics more opportunities to go after his criminal-justice record - and how his failure to reform the Baltimore Police Department has led to the lawlessness in the city that disproportionally affects people of color.  

In other words, the NRA hates him, but the people whom O'Malley should have as allies don't think too much of him either.

Again, Martin O'Malley has devoted his life of public service to making his city and his state as safe and as free of violence as possible, but he was only able to do so much as mayor of Baltimore and than as governor of Maryland.  He pursued his policies in the interest of the greater good, but some problems, especially in urban America, can't be solved in a single year or even in a single tenure of office.  And while he did what he thought was right when it came to public safety, knowing that his policies weren't going to be popular with everyone, he was somehow unable to satisfy anyone. 

Martin O'Malley knows what to do about gun violence, but if he were President today, he couldn't do it alone . . . which is pretty much what he is now.  So why do I continue to support him for President in 2020 when not too many people seem to be interested in the idea?  I think of O'Malley as someone who's ahead of his time, and I'm hoping that by the 2020 presidential campaign, his time will catch up with him.   

Not Gun Shy

I was going to write about how the leadership of the National Rifle Association - not its rank-and-file members, its leadership - is the slimiest set of lobbyists in Washington, but alas, they're not that reputable. It seems that the NRA leadership has endorsed a proposal to make concealed weapon permits in different states valid nationwide by federal law, overriding restrictions in other states. A bill that would in fact override state laws against concealed firearms was passed by the Republican House - with some Democratic support - and it now has to be voted on by the Senate. Already, several Senate Democrats, including New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg, are working to make sure the bill gets defeated, or at least filibustered to death.

New Jersey, in addition to having some of the most dangerous real estate in America, has one of the toughest hidden gun laws in the country. This bill would theoretically make it easier for out-of-staters to come in, possibly to sell illegal drugs, and make life in Newark and Camden even worse than it already is. Some states, like Florida, are so lax in issuing concealed weapon permits that ex-convicts can get them. How many Republicans in New Jersey's House delegation supported this wrong-headed idea? All six of them.

Except that NRA rank-and-file members overwhelmingly oppose this bill, and they've lobbied their own lobby against it. Apparently NRA leaders listen to their members as much as congressman listen to constituents who support taxing millionaires. That is to say ,they don't.

This bill passed the House last week, the same week a man from Idaho fired rounds at the White House in hope of assassinating the President.

Speaking of concealment, I can't conceal my anger over this. That's why I'm posting this on the anniversary of the John F. Kennedy assassination.