{"id":8268,"date":"2025-12-15T09:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=8268"},"modified":"2025-12-15T09:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:21:10","slug":"just-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2025\/12\/15\/just-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Random Violence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We are America.  We are awash in violence.  If one more media commentator uses the phrase \u201cunspeakable\u201d to describe these actions, I may fracture the screen.  It\u2019s not \u201cunspeakable\u201d.  We speak of this violence all of the time.  In fact, that\u2019s pretty much all we manage to do; talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This weekend a shooter interrupted a final exam study session at Ivy League Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.  Eleven students were injured, two have died from their wounds.  Police held a \u201cperson of interest\u201d for several hours, but he was released.  The shooter remains at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This weekend, activist and legendary director and actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home.\u00a0\u00a0Reiner, originally of \u201cArchie Bunker\u201d fame; directed \u201cA Few Good Men\u201d, \u201cthe Princess Bride\u201d and \u201cThis is Spinal Tap\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He was a driving force in progressive politics; and a leading voice opposing the Trump Administration.\u00a0\u00a0The attacker remains at large and unidentified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And, as if to prove that random violence is contagious, this weekend there was an attack on a Jews celebrating Hannukah, the festival of light, on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.\u00a0\u00a0At least two shooters took the high ground, randomly shooting into the joyous crowd.\u00a0\u00a0Fifteen were killed, twenty-seven more wounded.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One attacker is dead, the other in custody. Both are of Middle Eastern background, as is the courageous man who wrestled the rifle away from one of them. That hero was shot twice by the second shooter, and is in the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least that\u2019s a \u201csurprise\u201d in Australia.  After a horrible mass shooting in 1996, when 35 people were killed, the Nation instituted strict gun control laws.  While this hasn\u2019t prevented all shootings, it did make these incidents rare.  Which makes this attack perhaps even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But violence is no surprise here in the United States.  It\u2019s common place.  And the phrases \u201cunspeakable\u201d and \u201chearts and prayers\u201d, are only weak salve on the wound.  No one is seriously suggesting a real response, a real solution to our ongoing failure to protect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solutions <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We can lock up our children in their schools.  We can add more police.  We can, as some suggest, arm EVERYONE so that the \u201cgood guys can shoot the bad guys\u201d.  We can put more police around Jewish gatherings, protecting them from growing anti-Semitism.  But America\u2019s reality is that we are a nation of violence.  It must be in our national DNA.  At least Australians can take some solace in the fact they\u2019ve taken action, and plan to take even more.  Here in the United States, all we do is talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone will say:  well, the Reiner\u2019s were stabbed to death.  Gun controls wouldn\u2019t have helped them.  In fact, if they had guns, maybe they\u2019d be alive.  And that\u2019s true; American violence is endemic.  But tell the Brown University students that cowered behind desks that guns aren\u2019t a \u201croot\u201d of our violence.  Tell the two National Guardsmen shot in Washington, DC just a few weeks ago.  Tell all of the children who will hide in the back of a classroom in a \u201cschool shooting\u201d drill this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in America we should learn from Australia.\u00a0\u00a0Today they are talking about what they can do to prevent this kind of tragedy.\u00a0\u00a0Today, America is talking about \u201cthoughts and prayers\u201d, of “unspeakable acts”.\u00a0\u00a0We are in an age of political paralysis, led by a President and a Party only interested in securing their own financial benefits.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoughts and prayers are the best we can do: it’s just talk, and\u00a0\u00a0just cowardly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essays on Mass Shootings<\/h4>\n\n\n\n