TOO MANY TIMES FOR TOO MANY ANGRY MEN

Back in 1942, science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wrote (in Beyond This Horizon) that “An armed society is a polite society.”  I like a lot of Heinlein’s work, but the past 75 years of American history has provided more than enough evidence to call bullshit on that claim.

There are now somewhere between 250-350 million guns in America.  That’s approximately one firearm for every man, woman, and child in the country.  Some gun owners – most of them, let’s say – are law abiding folks who like to hunt, or do some target shooting, or imagine that having a gun makes them safer somehow.

But in a country of over 300 million people, where Republican lawmakers have done their best to make it as easy as possible for just about anyone to buy an assault weapon, some of those guns will inevitably find their way into the hands of criminals, or criminals in waiting.  And as we learned when James Hodgkinson shot up a group of Republican congressmen at a park in Alexandria, VA, violent criminals can be found at every point along the political spectrum.

To be honest, I’ve been wondering when something like Wednesday’s sniper attack on Congressional Republicans would happen.

Let me pause here to make myself perfectly clear.  I abhor terrorism in all its forms.  I abhor it when it comes from the political right, and I abhor it when it comes from the political left.  I abhor it whether it’s motivated by religion, by politics, or simply by mental illness.  I don’t approve of, condone, or sympathize with murder, no matter who or what the target.  Period.  Full stop.  Don’t do that.  Don’t do anything like remotely like that.  Please.

That said, I believe our politicians would benefit from conducting a thought experiment about the impact of their policies.  Let’s start with health care.  It appears more likely than not that some sort of Obamacare repeal will make it through the Senate this year.  We don’t know the content of the Senate bill, because Republicans have deliberately kept it secret.  We don’t have a CBO score for it yet.  Republicans in the House enthusiastically endorsed a bill that would lead to 24 million people losing health insurance.  Maybe the Senate number will turn out to be lower.  For the sake of the argument, let’s say the Senate manages to cut that number in half.  Let’s say “only” 12 million people will lose health insurance.

How many of those 12 million people own guns?  Maybe half of them?  Let’s assume that half of that hypothetical 6 million people stay healthy for the foreseeable future.  That leaves us with 3 million sick and potentially desperate gun owners.  Let’s say 99% of those 3 million people will choose to suffer in silence, maybe even die in silence.  That would still leave 30,000 armed and angry citizens who might not choose to go gentle into that good night.

You could extend that line of speculation to other issues as well.  How many immigrants (or immigrant-looking folks) will be armed and fed up in a year or two?  How many Muslims?  How many American minorities?  How many people hearing voices in their heads, full of adrenaline from all the free floating anger in this country?

Who will they be mad at?  Will they care about all your thoughts and prayers?

I repeat:  I don’t want any violence at all, directed against anyone for any reason. 

But I hope that Wednesday’s incident (I mean the one in Alexandria, not the three other mass shootings that took place on the same day) serves to remind politicians that their actions may have unintended consequences.  What goes around comes around, and not necessarily at the ballot box.

The title of this post comes from “Too Many Martyrs,” a song by Phil Ochs, from 1964.  Here’s the chorus.  “Too many martyrs and too many dead, Too many lies too many empty words were said. Too many times for too many angry men.  Oh let it never be again."