Standing Up

AN NBA COACH VENTS his outrage. The manager of the San Fransisco baseball Giants expresses his intention of avoiding the National Anthem in protest of his country's failure to take arms against a sea of troubles. The New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, (who used to be called the "Devil Rays" until the Christians caught up with them) post gun violence stats on their websites and remind us: "Nothing will change until something changes", in an apparent bow to Yogi Berra. Out come the right wing pro gunners, condemning them all. The Yankees have more than three and a half million followers online, and their post got more than seventy thousand likes, making it their single most popular post. If anger and outrage are required to facilitate the much needed change, let us all rage! The most famous picture of Einstein is the one in which he has a pen clipped to his grey sweat shirt, is sitting behind a desk, looking up at the camera, hair disheveled, a stern expression on his face. He has just responded to the question: "Will humanity ever free itself from the scourge of warfare"? His answer is that: "As long as there are people, there will be war"....This cynical view applies to violence generally. As long as there are people, there will be murders and mass murders, with guns or any number of implements turned into weapons. As conservatives are fond of pointing out: damned near anything can become a weapon, including silverware, plates, and coffee cups, as many a wayward husband has learned the hard way. Our best hope is mitigation, not elimination. But war is a special kind of violence, murder on an international scale, and guns are a very special kind of weapon, far more powerful and effective than coffee cups. Einstein said: "You cannot simultaneously prepare for war and preserve peace". American conservatives might have us believe that preparation for war is the best method of preserving peace. They would be mistaken, as they are with their contention that the answer to gun violence is to put more guns in the hands of more people, "good" people'. Who are the "good people", and how to we identify them? Einstine might have said: "You cannot simultaneously increase the number of guns and decrease the frequency of their use." Every "bad" person began as a good person, and was recognized generaly as a good person. The problem is to identify and neutralize them before they become bad. Since we are all initially good people, our best hope is in mitigating gun violence by assuming, a priori, that we are all potentially bad.