Thursday, October 5, 2017

Is this who we are?



I’m not a person that does a lot of watching the TV. I also don’t listen to the radio very much. So Monday morning when I got up and pushed the search button on the radio of my car. I was very much shocked at hearing about the horrific mass killing that happen in Las Vegas. Somehow in the back of my mind I wanted the anchorman to say “Just kidding”, or “you’ve been pranked”, or I would have even accepted “April fools  But none of this happened;

 All I could hear was the astronomical numbers of nearly 50 people killed and 400 people injured. And throughout the day these numbers swelled to nearly sixty killed and over 500 people injured. 

Somehow this man came to the Mandalay Bay hotel with 10 large assault weapons and fired into a crowd of people enjoying an outdoor concert. And our response to this type atrocity, this complete and utter dismissal of respect for the human life, has never been to legislate stricter laws concerning gun control. So there is no reason to believe that it will be in the future, God forbid if we steps on the toes of the second amendment. Instead we direct the blame on terrorism, or mental sickness, or racism or in the case of “Harvest Festival Massacre”, security of the hotel. We will point the blame on anything but the guns in which the psychopaths use to decimate people's lives and families.

When 7 gang members are killed by a rival gang with machine guns (St Valentine’s Day Massacre) we immediately banned the use of machine guns. Yet when the peaceful community of Nickel Mines PA is accosted by some nut case who shoots 11 little girls ages 6-13  our response is not to legislate laws to avoid these kind of attacks, but the promote forgiveness all the while giving more freedoms and protections to the people that commit these crimes.

After a while it becomes apparent that those politicians in charge don’t want to reach a solution, and   history has not found even one politician innocent. Even though this country is eating itself alive like a cancer, nothing is done. Politicians are lining their palms in gold with the gratuities of their silence, while the under-girded perpetrators do all they can to avoid laws that regulate gun control.  

Paul Ryan’s Speaker of the House comments that “We won’t let this define us, this is not who we are” may motivate some, but the hate that under-girds these type of mass killing proves it’s all a lie. This shooting which we call the “Harvest Festival Massacre” though it is billed as the largest killing in history is only more proof of our short term memory and our failure to take the necessary steps to avoid such atrocities against our citizens has been a problem for longer than most of us have been alive. 

Don’t be fooled this is not the largest or worst mass killing in United States History, it just the one that happen too recently for us to ignore.  By saying this is the worst mass murder in history is to deny the lives of the hundreds of innocent women children and men that have died, and to pervert the truth of our history. 

Contrary to was Paul Ryan said  Mass killing may not be how we want to be identified in this great country we call the United States, but it is most surely who we have up to today been.
Date
Location
City, State
killed
wounded
June  2016
Orland Fl.
49
49
December 2015    
San Bernardino
14
22
September 2013
Washington DC
12
3
Dec 2012
Newtown Conn
27
1
July 2012
Aurora Colo.
12
58
April 2009
Binghamton NY
14
4
April  2007
Blackburg Va.
32
17
April 1999
Columbine Colo
13
24
October 1991
Killeen TX
22
20
June 1990
Jacksonville Fla
10
4
August 1986
Edmond Okla
14
6
July 1984
San Ysidro Calif
21
19
August 1966
Austin Tx
17
31
June 1921
Tulsa Ok
250 recorded dead because of mass grave no one is sure

October 1919
Little Rock Ark
230
called a lynching
1917
St. Louis Illinois
40-100 all African Americans most women and children
December 1890
Wounded Knee Creek South Dakota
90 Native American  men
200 women and children
4 White soldiers,  6 were awarded a medal of honor  
April 1873
Colfax Louisiana
150 African Americans, 3 white American