America is unsafe, corrupt and simply fooling itself

The last high school graduation I attended in 2018 was in one of the best rated school districts in the state in a community in suburban Chicago where you think "it couldn't happen here." I was actually a bit nervous during the ceremony. It was in an auditorium with the exit doors mostly to one side and everyone seemed to be a "soft target." There was a police presence outside the school, but I don't recall any inside the auditorium. The fact that a police presence has become more essential than precautionary or, in some cases honorary (showing up as to participate, receive or give an award), is a clear sign of the times. The shooting at Parkland was only a few months before.

Photo I took at Mom's Demand Action rally, Orlando, FL 8/17/19

My step-sister recently moved to a great community in suburban Atlanta. I wonder if those kids will go through drills in case of a shooting. I hope they do because it is necessary; but I am sickened by the thought and worried about impact such drills have on the psyche of children and mortified of the thought of their ever having to use their training. I don't know if my brother's kids, who live in a bucolic part of Northwest New Jersey, do either. For that matter, he is a teacher and I do recall his saying he stayed out the classroom for a time in part because of his reservations about potential shootings in schools. My cousins are in high school in Tacoma and their Mother is a teacher in the same district. Sadly, to me, they all live and work in places ripe for a problem. Having good schools, great kids, nice neighbors, doesn't mean a thing. The reality is, we shouldn't have to have this conversation. It shouldn't be buying your way in or out of it; kids shouldn't die at school, at the movies, at a Synagogue, Mosque or Church, let alone Walmart. You shouldn't take your date out and get killed being out on the town.

We have among the highest gun murder rates in the world. Mental health is undoubtedly a contributing factor. We can further argue what constitutes "mental health." Are hatred, racism, white supremacy mental health issues? Certainly it can be argued that any reason that motivates a person to create such mayhem that they would kill masses of people are not mentally well suited to be free in society. That gets us into a conversation about the Federal Government stopping funding for mental health facilities in the 1980's, which has since led to increased drug use, incarceration and homelessness as well. Certainly it can be carried further into the debate about health care and coverage. I have a hard time buying that playing Grand Theft Auto or any other video game is a lead contributor any more than watching Terminator movies, though we could probably have less of both in society. But Canadians, Australians, Europeans play and view the same without constant mass murders at festivals. They have immigrants too and they are able to buy their back-to-school supplies without fear of being shot down while doing so.

What is different in all these places is the access to guns and specifically high capacity weapons. I am far from an expert nor want to even try but anything that is a "weapon of war" does not need to be in the day-to-day hands of the average American. Our police should never be out-weaponized, nor do they need guns that can kill 9 people in 30 seconds. They should never go to work thinking they might be among half a dozen of their colleagues shot in the line of duty that day because they face a madman unwilling to cooperate with law enforcement.

Unfortunately, justice in America from police enforcement to prison system has effectively and efficiently left large segments of Americans leery of trusting it. Filling our gaps in the seemingly day-to-day news of mass shootings are the endless reports of racial profiling, police brutality, seemingly unjust court decisions, and protocols being tossed out the window in an overcrowded, understaffed prison system. Among our many illnesses is a addiction to mass incarceration. There are almost as many people incarcerated in the US as there are citizens in Houston. Privatizing some prisons makes many all the more leery when profits become the motivation. This is a legitimate concern, just as it is in dealing with health care in America.

There is nothing new nor earth-shattering in what I am saying. Again, I am not an expert on any angle of this topic but I do read and I do have common sense. If Americans make up less than 5% of the world's population but own over 45% of the guns in the world, that is problematic. I've been given the argument it is too late for this reason. That is simply lame bullshit. Gun buyback programs have yielded mixed results and had limited studies done; that doesn't mean they shouldn't be done. What about buying back ammunition? If an NIH study shows that mass shootings dropped some 70% during the ban of semi-automatic weapons from 1994 to 2004, why should this be up for so much debate? If more than 80% of Americans across the party spectrum support universal background checks, something that seems to be a bare minimum we should long have been doing, why hasn't it happened? If more states are passing laws that are showing impacts that work and would only be strengthened by Federal legislation, why doesn't anything happen? At the end of the day, there is too much will on one side and not enough collective will on the other even if it is the overwhelming majority on items regulating gun use.

The greatest strength in America has been our diversity. In many ways, it has also been our greatest struggle. My Grandfather arrived at Ellis Island from Italy in the late 1920's. His first memory of America was pissing in his pants at 5 years old because he did not know how to ask for the bathroom. He worked at a tailor shop much of his childhood while going to school during the Depression. He turned down a full scholarship to Princeton for one at Temple University. The story was that Temple had a work study program and he could help start a couple of his siblings in school. He was one of 6 and that might be true but the underlying truth was he wasn't willing to go to a school of rich Anglo kids as a wop. He frequently rerouted his trips home as he was beaten up coming home from school as a Guido. My female cousin, a generation younger of German ancestry but born in Michigan, was also a victim of what we now call hate crimes around WWII on a regular basis.

This said, nobody in my family was enslaved (and I hope enslaved no-one, my Mother's family history in part goes way back). Nobody had to pay coyotes to get here. They did not escape killing fields, they didn't flee to keep their children from being abducted by gangs. Many had struggles, but to varying extents all of my family was able to achieve the American Dream to varying degrees. Some rose from nothing, a few rose and at other points fell, but all have had opportunities.

My Great Grandfather St.Genis swung a pick on the Pennsylvania Railroad and raised 6 children. They were poor, but they were able to get by. My Grandfather I spoke about already, and he went on to get an excellent college education and have a management level sales career in the heyday of the American auto industry. My Grandmother went to a teacher's college and was able to become an educator with no college debt. They were able to provide more for my Father who was a corporate executive in his prime. None of them, though, confronted the challenges that my generation began to coming of age which have ever grown with and we are passing on as part of our legacy manifested to our children. Education and healthcare costs have made both nearly insurmountable for most. GEN Xers, like myself, faced the largest period of wage stagnation of any generation in US history and I have many friends making the same or less than they were a decade or more ago, myself included for the most part (I am self-employed so always in flux). Millennials are graduating from school with $50,000 to over $100,000 of student loan debt in addition to the prospect of not having the opportunities to "do better" than their parents. They have grown up in the shadows of 9/11, with America in endless wars, and in constant fear of mass shootings.

It is foolish for Americans to live behind rose colored glasses with this belief of our nation as safer, with better education, healthcare and overall quality of life. We are a great nation, we still offer great promise. We don't need to be "great again" but perhaps need to realize that maybe making changes where we adapt to be more "like" most other industrialized nations make us wiser, not socialists, not weaker. 

5 Key Facts about mass incarceration