When Moral Fortitude is Lacking

I was in my home office a few days ago when a strange car pulled into my driveway. As I was wondering who it was and what they wanted, the car immediately pulled away and returned in the direction from which it came. It seemed the person was just using my driveway as a U-turn.

Quickly, I realized that I’ve done something similar a few times when I’d turned into the wrong street or passed a house I was going for the first time and needed to turn around. Then suddenly, it dawned on me that this behavior could be deadly.

It has been dangerous as recent experiences can testify.

On April 18 - just a couple of days before my experience - in upstate New York, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed after the car in which she was riding accidentally pulled into the wrong driveway. The group of friends in the car were going to a party and did not even get out of the vehicle. Realizing they were at the wrong address, the group started to back out of the driveway when the resident fired two shots from his porch, striking Gillis in the neck.

Five days before that in Kansas City, Missouri, Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old teenager, was shot twice by a man after ringing the man’s doorbell. Yarl had mistakenly rang the doorbell to 84-year-old Andrew Lester’s home believing it was where his two younger brothers were visiting a friend. He was there to pick them up. Instead, he was shot twice without being given the chance to explain why he was there. Luckily, he survived.

That week from hell wasn’t done as another man in Texas shot and injured two cheerleaders, Payton Washington and Heather Roth, after one of them almost got into his parked car by mistake. This happened just a couple of days after Gillis was killed.

During the previous day, a six-year-old girl and her parents were shot by a neighbor after a basketball that the child was playing with rolled into the attacker’s yard. Witnesses said the man ran out of his home upset about the ball’s intrusion into his yard and started firing a gun at the little girl who was trying to retrieve her ball.

As I looked back at each of these incidents, I couldn’t help but imagine what was going on in the heads of each of these shooters. None of the people they shot posed any immediate risk or danger to them. When did we become a nation of shoot first and ask questions later?

I usually try to steer clear of topics that could be seen as political in this newsletter. But then, it seems that virtually everything is political these days, especially in the United States. So, I’m diving headlong into this even though I realize that my head could get chopped off in the process. To be clear, I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but I’m sure that won’t dissuade someone who is bent on seeing this as a political issue.

I can’t help but wonder what it would take for our lawmakers to pass a gun safety reform. Almost every single day, this issue of gun safety is thrust to the fore because of incidences such as these, where people with guns discharge their firearms in situations that are not necessary.

With a new incident, there’s usually an immediate outcry but it’s soon forgotten until the next incident or mass shooting. Meanwhile, innocent people are either dying or being maimed almost daily.

When it’s easy for anyone to get a gun, including people who are neither mentally stable nor emotionally mature, we’ve got a real problem. Unfortunately, those with the power to do something about this, lack the moral fortitude to take action because of fear.

I read in an article last week that Switzerland has a very high rate of gun ownership, yet the country has not had a mass shooting in more than 20 years. In the United States, unnecessary shooting is almost a daily occurrence.

The Swiss have very strict rules about who can own a gun and what type of training is needed to possess one. They have laws designed to prevent anyone who’s incompetent or has violent tendencies from owning a gun.

In the United States, we’re supposed to have one of the world’s best and brightest minds but it seems our stupidity, ignorance, and impotency know no bounds, especially in this area. We’re not willing to do the right thing for the fear of a few interest groups. We major in minor issues and gloss over serious situations that are taking the lives of innocent people.

We're in self-destruct mode and we don’t seem to realize it. I can only hope that our leaders wise up soon and do the right thing.

I just wonder what it will take for that to happen.

Hatred from Unexpected Places

It was another couple of dark days in the United States over the weekend. On Saturday, a gunman killed 11 people at a ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park, California during Lunar New Year celebrations. He also reportedly tried to target a second dance hall but failed.

Early yesterday (Sunday) morning, there was another mass shooting at a nightclub in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in which a dozen people were injured. As I’m writing this, one of the victims is in critical condition.

There were two more shootings on Sunday in Shreveport, Louisiana and Robinsonville, Mississippi. Both of these added another dozen to the list of those injured from mass shootings.

Mass shootings in America have become so routine that their shock values continue to decrease exponentially. That’s a scary thing to contemplate but it seems we may be becoming numb to these tragedies.

According to the website, Gun Violence Archive (https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/), there have been 36 mass shootings and 5 mass murders resulting in more than 1,140 deaths this year alone. And we're only three weeks into the year!

Twenty-one of the dead are children under the age of twelve and 95 of them are teenagers. More than 250 in these age groups have been injured, many of them maimed for life.

That's as unbelievable as it is disheartening.

The shooting in Monterey Park and the resulting manhunt for the shooter sent a big shockwave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area. The incident also cast a dark shadow over Chinese New Year festivities around the country, so much so that other cities sent extra officers to watch over their celebrations.

Due to an uptick in hate crimes against Asian minorities since the pandemic, and the fact that this latest incident targeted a dance studio filled with people celebrating the Lunar New Year, one’s immediate thought would be that this is another Asian hate incident.

But is it?

The suspect, later identified as a 72-year-old adult Asian man was found dead with self-inflicted gun wounds the following morning less than 30 miles away in Torrance, California. He was driving a van that matched eyewitness descriptions and shot himself when the vehicle was stopped and before police officers could approach.

Many are wondering why an Asian man would target other Asians in a community filled with Asian Americans. Did he have a mental illness? Could this be linked to some kind of domestic abuse? Your guess is as good as mine as authorities continue to look into positive motives.

Two law enforcement sources said the suspect recently showed up at a police station saying his family was trying to poison him. So, this could easily be a family dispute gone awry. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, however, what this proves to me is the depravity of the human mind.

We usually think of hatred in situations where there are obvious differences between perpetrators and victims. But sometimes, the reasons may not be that deep. After all, some have killed their own family members or other loved ones in sudden moments of uncontrollable anger, and that may be the situation here.

They may not have meant to, but they did. And that's a cautionary tale for you and me. If we have the tendency to get angry easily and we don’t have the impulse control skills to reign in the anger or channel it appropriately, the consequences can be disastrous.

You may say that’s not you. You could be thinking that even though you have anger problems, you would never resort to such a level of violence. Well, I doubt if any of those who have succumbed to their fits of anger thought a particular situation would turn them into murderers.

And yet, here we are.

So, are you easily angered or annoyed? Do you tend to take out your frustrations on others? If that’s you, I think you should consider working with a professional to find safe outlets for your anger and frustrations. Please do it before it’s too late.

You could be saving lives in the process.