(TriceEdneyWireService.com) – I will never forget the shellacking I took from the NRA when I ran for Congress and suggested that we didn’t need weapons of mass destruction to shoot rabbits! Not many people came to my defense then, and it was a very lonely time, but I held firm. Now, like most Americans, I find myself in a state of disbelief about the events of 12-14- 2012, in Newtown, CT. I struggle for an answer to the question of how anyone could brutally massacre innocent children and teachers. I empathize with the families who lost loved ones and pray for those seeking closure through greater understanding. I’m unsure of whether we’ll ever have enough answers to explain the horror of that day.
We’ll labor to find a solution to gun violence in an attempt to minimize the possibility of a recurrence of this event. We must revisit gun regulations and regulation of devices of destruction. I’m sure the technicalities of re-regulation of guns will be a matter of lengthy debate, but I believe we’ll ultimately see some tightening of controls. The extent and type of controls will be determined by the moral courage of legislators tasked with addressing this issue.
While I see re-regulation of guns as a necessary response to the events of Newtown, CT, I doubt gun regulation will be a panacea for the elimination of gun violence. The action of the shooter, Adam Lanza, suggests added problems that are separate from the issue of guns. The fact that Lanza disregarded one of the most inviolate social taboos by killing his own mother and desecrated the commonly accepted social construct of protecting the innocent (especially children) tells those who’re willing to listen that there’s a greater problem than guns.
I wasn’t surprised to learn that Lanza had a history of mental illness. In recent years, the all too frequent emergence of incidents of gun violence seems to be perpetrated by those so diagnosed. There’s no consolation in his disability and the fact that it appears to be the cause of his heinous crime. It’s been offered as fact that his mother sought mental healthcare for him, but we’ll never know whether that access to mental healthcare could have prevented this tragedy. What we do know is The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reports that Connecticut’s public mental health system currently provides coverage for less than one in five Connecticut residents with a serious mental health problem. Beyond that, the other four may not be able to afford to pay for those services on their own, particularly since mental health issues tend to disproportionately affect poor people.
Those not burdened with the label of mental illness do not escape from this dynamic as blameless. In large measure we have lounged in apathy while our national discourse has coarsened and the model of compromise has become “giving our opponent a beatdown.” From the imagery projected in movies, television, music, video games and talk radio, we have come to accept the total destruction of those whose positions differ from our own as a model of appropriate interaction. We then wonder, “What is wrong with our children and young adults? What is wrong with us?”
These questions should’ve already been asked after the multitude of less dramatic, yet important acts of violence in our nation. Hundreds of citizens are killed or wounded by senseless acts of violence – often without comment. I’m saddened by the events of Newtown, but I’m heartened by the discussion that it forces us to have now.
We’ve been confronted with the genuine conundrum of balancing public safety against Constitutional rights, and challenging us to reclaim the ‘better angels’ of our humanity. I pray that this is the time we’ll do the right thing?
(E. Faye Williams is Chair of the National Congress of Black Women. www.nationalcongressbw.org. 202/678-6788)