It's All Very Bleak

It's been ten days since the murder of nineteen children and two teachers, and the wounding of seventeen others, in Uvalde, Texas. Since then, there have been twenty more mass shootings (according to the Gun Violence Archive). In these additional shootings, seventeen persons were killed, and eighty-eight were injured. (In those ten days, if you count all shootings, and not just mass shootings, 499 persons have died, and 115 have been injured). 

That's a lot of people. Once again, I ask myself: why do people need guns? I understand that some are used for hunting. Some are used for target shooting. And maybe some are for self-defense (although having those guns in your home is more likely to increase the chance for accidental injury, homicide, and suicide than to protect you.)

Guns are really good at killing people - especially guns developed for the military, and guns modeled after them. Why does anyone need a weapon like that? I just can't wrap my head around it. 

I've realized that calling for "common sense gun legislation" is a non-starter. The immediate reaction seems to be "don't touch my guns" - even after the deaths of all those children in Uvalde, and the children who die from accidental shootings, and the children who die from domestic violence, and the children who die of suicide because a gun was handy. Accordingly, I'm trying to reframe my requests to be more specific, such as these from Moms Demand Action: background checks on all gun sales; red flag laws; safe storage laws.

Another outcome of this shooting is that I've lost confidence that we can rely on the police. It is painful to write those words; I've always had respect for police officers, and my own experiences with them have only been positive. But the officers in Uvalde appear to have done little to stop the gunman. It appears that they waited outside the classroom, doing nothing, for an hour. Meanwhile, children were calling 911, begging for help. I don't understand how these officers could just stand there, seemingly doing nothing. It breaks my heart. I find myself rehearsing in my mind all the stories of police (mis)behavior that I've heard, and I wonder: are bad cops actually the rule, and good cops the exception?

It is all very bleak, so here's a bleak haiku:

His anger aims the
gun. Children fall to the floor;
good guys wait outside.

Composite illustration of the 21 victims (Family handouts/Reuters)

The Remorseful Day

Checking my email this morning, I see that PBS has a video about the final season of Endeavour. The video, it turns out, is simply Shaun Evans (who plays Endeavour Morse) reading A.E. Housman's poem, How Clear, How Lovely Bright.

I guess that the poem is meant to describe the stages of one's life, from youthful hope to regrets in old age. But yesterday's events - the shooting deaths of 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas - lay heavy on my mind, and I heard the poem in that mindset. A child's day should indeed begin lovely bright, with glee - but it ought not to end in such remorse.

How Clear, How Lovely Bright
by A.E. Housman

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day.