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Date: 6/17/2016
Like many other people whose charge includes writing an editorial column, I am overwhelmed this morning. The events in Orlando, FL, are almost beyond comprehension.
I cannot imagine what the experience was like for the people gathered at that nightclub or what their families are now going through.
I certainly see the reactions of many of the people I know on Facebook and those messages sum up a wide swath of opinions. What seems to be the common denominator is the desire to blame someone.
Perhaps that is a simple and sometimes regrettable human reaction. Somehow I think that makes people feel better in their rage and sorrow.
The problem is it doesn’t necessarily spur any progress in solving either the issue of terrorist acts or random violence, as we’ve seen.
In this case, it has been reported the man responsible for the killings was an American citizen of Afghan heritage who had been investigated by the F.B.I. He had been interviewed twice. He was on a watch list. He had a firearms license in his home state of Florida and legally bought weapons.
In other words, the systems set up by the federal government and state government to try to prevent such terrorism had been used.
It should be noted there was a bill defeated in the Senate that would have prevented gun sales to suspected terrorists. Of course even if it had been made law, it’s quite possible this man could have obtained his weapons illegally.
If I asked the question of “What’s next?” to my Facebook crowd, I know some of the answers I would get. Some of the people would tell me to vote for Donald Trump as he will stop terrorism – how I’m not sure. Others would tell me that Islam is a religion of violence, so we must ban it, keep it out of the mainstream of this country – a country built partly on the basis of religious freedom.
Do you honestly think that every one practicing Islam is a potential terrorist?
People want the president to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” in describing these acts. Somehow they see this as a measure that will go towards solving the problem. I don’t think so.
Some I know would say that we all need to arm ourselves and we all need to carry weapons. Would more weapons escalate violence or quell it? Would that inadvertently increase the number of illegal weapons?
Others, I’ve seen, have called attention to the idea that children are not receiving the instruction they should receive on the family level. Their upbringing has not been sufficient enough to prevent such violence.
There are plenty of people in the wake of the tragedy who simply call people of differing political beliefs names. Insulting someone is always a good first step toward solving a problem.
The problem with the memes, the short comments, the long strings of debate, the retweets and the shares is they do not address the core issues here – in my humble opinion.
In a free society, how do we read minds? How do we know if someone is actually turning into a domestic terrorist? We continue to ban the legal sale of certain guns, how do we address the millions of illegal guns already in society? Do we ban religions? How do we erase an idea? How do prevent people from hating “the other?”
Do you really want this country to be a police state of some sort?
How do we “fix” the Middle East – an arrogant question in many ways as I’m sure people would argue that we “broke” the Middle East. Since foreign policy tends to shift with events and administrations is there any way to have a cohesive attitude to one area of the world?
How do we prevent people from seeing this country as a threat and reacting to that threat with violence?
If you have some answers, I’d certainly like to hear them.
This column is the opinion of its author and does not necessarily reflect the position of the owners or advertisers of this newspaper. Got a comment about this story? Go to http://speakout.thereminder.com and let us know.