(Dobbs) Thoughts and Prayers Failed Us Again.
They sound sympathetic but if they support the 2nd Amendment, they're not.
Yet again, the thoughts and prayers of the gun lobby and its shameful supporters— the politicians, the donors, the manufacturers, the sellers— couldn’t spare us yesterday, on the nation’s birthday, from a headline like this.
Or the day before, like this.
Or the day before that, like this.
Or the three other mass shootings in America on the 4th of July, or the nine other mass shootings in the two days before that. And that’s to say nothing of the almost countless people gunned down in just those three days but where, since there were fewer than four victims, the definition of a “mass shooting” didn’t apply.
These people who build barriers to any kind of sensible gun reform keep relying on thoughts and prayers and keep hiding behind the 2nd Amendment, as if it was meant to allow even massacres like these. It wasn’t. Anyone paying attention on this Fourth of July to the founding of our nation and the meaning of our Constitution knows the words: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It was “a well regulated militia” that gave us the privilege of Independence Day.
But just as the First Amendment does not entitle us to shout fire in a crowded theater, the Second Amendment does not entitle us to arm madmen. Yet the heartless intransigence, the political cowardice of the people who take cover behind it has led to just that. The First Amendment is not absolute. Neither is the Second. Yet these people treat it and defend it as if it is.
For the record, yesterday’s slaughter in Philadelphia was America’s 340th mass shooting of the year, so far. Five years ago, at the same midpoint on the calendar, the number wasn’t even half that.
This week of all weeks, as we have just relived the reasons why we celebrate the 4th of July, it should be more obvious than ever that the 2nd Amendment was meant for a militia, acting in defense of our nation. It was never meant to allow this.
But do we get sensible reform from the gun lobby, reform that might save some lives? And I don’t just mean background checks and cooling off periods and red flag laws. I mean a ban on military style assault rifles. As we saw again in Philadelphia and elsewhere, they are weapons of mass destruction.
But no, the best we get from the people who defend the Second Amendment as if it’s sacred are thoughts and prayers. No apologies, no contrition, no compromise.
How do they sleep?!
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
The idiocy is most blatant in Florida, where anyone can buy a gun with no background check whatsoever. The second amendment is as misunderstood as the Bible.
The #of mass shootings is astounding. The horrible juxtaposition of the headlines and the beauty of the 4th of July celebrations seems impossible. Thx as always for your columns. B