5/29/2022

May 29, 2022

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            I hope your visit to Uvalde today brings some comfort to that community & to us all. I concur with your sentiment, “Too much fear, too much grief.”

            I assume you will be attending mass at Uvalde’s Sacred Heart Church. I’m sure that you will meet Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller who has been ministering to the families since the shootings on Tuesday. He can translate for you since many of the elders in the community don’t speak English.

            As I am sure you are aware the people in Uvalde are divided when it comes to regulating guns, so best to avoid talking about gun safety today. Better to talk about the need to recognize alienated people & reach out to them.

Clearly, the kid who committed this crime was a tormented soul who had withdrawn into himself. According to James Densley & Jillian Peterson who have a database of 172 shooters, these individuals want “to cause as much death and destruction as possible so that a world that had otherwise ignored them would be forced to notice them and feel their anguish,” & they “choose scapegoats who represent their grievance with the world.” Our gun culture promotes their fantasies about going down in a blaze of glory. Our loose laws give them access to the most lethal of weapons & our unfettered gun industry advertises to them.

            I think we would be wise to stop selling violence! Companies should not be able to profit from marketing fear. Eliminating the manufacture of weapons would fix so many of our problems, including the situation in Ukraine, Myanmar & all the other places in the world where armaments are being used.

            We need to stop killing each other so we can get busy saving the planet.

BYBS,