NO MORAL AUTHORITY — The Weekly Opine

Tears flow every day in America due to out-of-control gun violence. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Gun power

With its indifferent gun laws that foment an unbridled gun culture, the U.S. government has ‘overseen’ 565 (and counting) mass shootings this year. Included are the mass shooting last week in Maine that left 18 dead and 13 wounded, and last weekend’s mass shooting in Chicago with 15 wounded at a Halloween party. In Maine, the weapon was a military-style assault rifle. In Chicago, the weapon was a .357 caliber handgun described as “high-powered artillery.”

Despite the well-deserved focus on mass shootings and military-grade assault rifles, data shows most of the 48,830 gun deaths in the United States in 2021 resulted from suicides and domestic incidents. Handguns were the weapon of choice.

As we observe America’s unwillingness to cure its gun carnage addiction, you are left to conclude the U.S. has no standing to thrust itself as the world’s moral authority. Or, at least, the U.S. should come clean and admit to an ignoble reality predicated on “do as I say, not as I do.”

The Biden administration’s assessment that Israel should proceed cautiously in Gaza is correct. A tempered Israeli response would be the opposite of what America did in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. The key strategic question is how and when to respond? According to many global leaders, including U.S. politicians, deepening Gaza’s decades old isolation and poverty should not be part of the answer. For its part, the United Nations is calling for an outright ceasefire.

Nonetheless, Israel moves forward ramping up its campaign to stamp out Hamas – killing thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians in the process (more on that later). An epic crisis now unfolds along the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. According to the U.N., Gaza has further devolved into a humanitarian crisis that worsens daily. Gazans (understandably) now resort to breaking into warehouses and distribution centers to get flour and “basic survival items.” The U.N. fears we are at the “onset of the breakdown of civil order.”

As a reminder, earlier in this century, the U.S. learned the hard way that fracturing one militant terrorist group (Al-Qaeda) spawns more militant terrorist groups (ISIS). It also turns civilian populations against you as civilian casualties pile up.

Clearly, Israel has every right to seek retribution for the atrocious terrorist attack conducted by Hamas. However, global sentiment is starting to turn against Israel as photojournalists document what’s happening inside Gaza. The BBC has verified that Israel is dropping bombs in southern Gaza on refugee camps, after instructing civilians to leave the north for safety zones in the south. Civilian Palestinians (half of whom are children) are being discarded as wartime byproducts.

Legislators in Congress are weak-minded when it comes to reducing U.S. gun violence. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Is the U.S. credible?

The United States is not credible as we ‘advise’ Israeli officials, who have every right to reject America’s posturing as the moral authority. Considering that politicians in the U.S. idle, while nearly 50,000 Americans die annually from easily preventable gun violence, why would Israel listen to the U.S. government?

Just as U.S. apathy led to a globe-leading number of mostly preventable covid deaths, U.S. complacency is on display as preventable deaths caused by guns mount, while many politicians and citizens cling to the 2nd Amendment. Handwringing offers of thoughts and prayers are nauseating. Like a broken record, officials utter useless sentiments following mass shootings saying, “we must make sure this never happens again.” And then, without much delay, it happens again…repeatedly again and again.

In gun-friendly Maine, the “system” catastrophically failed. There were multiple reasons – and opportunities – to take Robert Card’s guns away from him.

Card threatened to shoot up his U.S. Army base in Maine. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a two-week stay. Card’s family reported he claimed to be hearing voices. Law enforcement issued a statewide alert in September following threats Card made yet no one was able to locate him. According to CNN, the Maine National Guard warned in September that Card was ripe to “snap and commit a mass shooting.” Yet no one took away Card’s guns.

Following Maine’s mass shooting Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who previously received the NRA’s highest grade for being gun-friendly, backed up. “The time has now come for me to take responsibility for [my] failure.” Golden went on to call for a ban on assault rifles. Rather than congratulate Golden for his epiphany, I say excoriate him. Only because the mass shooting happened in his backyard is Golden changing his tune, as if lives lost in mass shootings outside Maine don’t matter.

What’s in a number?

The Israeli Defense Force reported dropping 6,000 bombs, with a combined weight of 4,000 tons, on Gaza during the first week of Israel’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack. (According to the Washington Post, it took the U.S. one year to drop that many bombs on Afghanistan).

It’s unfathomable anything is still standing in Gaza. Gaza is, after all, a mere 25-mile long, 6-mile wide strip of land. You would think there’d be nothing left after being pummeled with 6,000 bombs in six days.

Now, the Biden administration questions the 9,000 deaths (nearly all civilian) reported by Hamas. There is merit in raising questions because Hamas is inherently not trustworthy. However, what is unquestionable is thousands of civilians are being killed in Gaza.

According to U.S. cable news, if you project the current number of dead children in Gaza to the U.S. population, you’d be looking at around 200,000 dead kids. Starting with the grotesque Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, Israel has lost 1,400 citizens (nearly all civilians, including children). If Hezbollah and others continue attacking Israel’s northern border, more Israeli civilians will likely die.

It’s a quagmire over there, and we have our own troubles here. Probably, the U.S. should worry about solving our embarrassing and preventable gun-violence epidemic before handing out advice in other places.