ROBERT KOEHLER – Every war and every mass murder spreads fear and hatred — and inspiration — in their aftermath. We can’t go to war without spawning imitators. The day after nine members of Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church were murdered, USA Today reported, the vigils at two South Carolina churches, in Charleston and Greenville, were disrupted by bomb threats and the churches had to be evacuated. “At some point,†President Obama said, “we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. . . . ” Until we begin demilitarizing our relationship with the world, such words uttered by presidents are as empty as the words Dylann Roof uttered in prayer at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that fateful night.
Tag: Sandy Hook massacre
We Are the Cause of Our Own Misery
JENNIFER BROWDY DE HERNANDEZ – A couple of weeks ago, when I heard that my 14-year-old son and his friend had been playing with the other boy’s air-soft pistols by shooting each other at close range, I saw red. “But it just stings like a bee-sting, Mom,†my son protested. “It just leaves a welt. Why are you getting so upset?†At the time, I wasn’t sure why I was getting so upset — after all, these were only toy guns…