I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA! Donald Trump on Truth Social June 13, 2024.

Art restorers use the term photodegradation to describe the process by which a painting fades. The colors remain present; they just become less vivid. That’s the Joe Biden story. David Frum in The Atlantic

The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman. Malcolm X in 1962.

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rule for their own gain. So, believe me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.” Harris to staffers at her campaign’s offices in Wilmington, Delaware, and sure to become a theme.

A lot has happened in the last two-ish weeks: Trump was shot and nominated—probably winged and coronated, is a slightly better descriptor—Biden withdrew from his campaign, Harris immediately became the new presumed presidential candidate, Mukesh Ambani’s, youngest son Anant finally got married in a wedding that, reportedly, cost $600M, and we broke the record for the hottest day on earth – two days in a row.

When Donald Trump was shot, my first thought was of President Reagan getting shot and how it raised his poll numbers because of the sympathy generated by him being shot. It gave me a sinking feeling that history would repeat itself. However, the shooting – and the coronation, for that matter – does not seem to have changed Trump’s numbers very much. He still has an approvable rating in the low forties and an unfavorable rating in the low fifties.

When Biden withdrew from his reelection campaign, he immediately backed Harris. Well, maybe not immediately, but quickly. He withdrew with a letter and then, shortly afterward, Tweeted his backing of Harris, and, by all accounts I’ve read and heard, Harris immediately started rounding up backing. Almost overnight, Harris raised $1.5M from a Zoom call with Black Women and rounded up enough delegates to get the nomination.

At first, I was sort of put off by the speed of the whole thing. By not having an open convention, it seemed like the party insiders were feeding us their choice and, once again, not waiting for us – the hoi polloi – to have our say. I don’t feel that way anymore. Michele was on the “White Women” Zoom call for Harris, and her enthusiasm has rubbed off on me. But, it’s not just me; in two, maybe three weeks, Vice President Harris has gone from being a problem to being almost everybody’s answer.

When Barack Obama ran for president, I almost immediately thought he was going to win. I have the same feeling about Kamala Harris. I’m not sure why; it just seems to be in the zeitgeist—well, in the zeitgeist and Michele’s enthusiasm, and the incredible rate at which Harris is raising money. To quote the LA Times: Since Vice President Kamala Harris vaulted into becoming the likely Democratic nominee for president a week ago, a groundswell of identity-based grassroots groups have sprung up online to rally behind her. The nightly calls are raising millions of dollars and securing hundreds of volunteers, drawing comparisons to the grassroots efforts that fueled former President Obama to victory in 2008.

As an aside, one of the interesting things about Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, who are both mixed race, is that they self-identify as primarily Black. Logically, as Spook used to say, which is not as advantageous as their abandoned half. But I know the feeling. When I was relatively young – say 14 – I didn’t believe in God. I don’t remember ever making an actual decision about it. Thinking back on it, I’m sure my atheist grandfathers and my atheist Dad were an influence. And, as far as that goes, my atheist Mother who would explain, when trying to get me to go to church, “I don’t believe in God, but people who do seem to be happier, so you should go to church.”

Still, identifying as an atheist seemed to be a cheap way of denying my Jewish heritage which was not an advantage. So, when asked – and people in those days seemed to care more about what religion somebody was, so I was asked – I would say something along the lines of “I don’t believe in any religion, but my heritage is Jewish.” End aside.

Back to Vice-President Kamala Harris. She is going to win this Presidential Election election. I started out by writing; Right now, I think that she is going to win. then I think that she is going to win. But both of those read too tentative so I’ll stick with: Kamala Harris is going to win the 2024 Presidential Election election.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Second Amendment to the US Constitution.

Our nation is shocked and saddened by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech today. President George Bush after the Virginia Tech shooting

We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future. President Barak Obama after the Tucson shooting.

I can speak for all of the senators, congressmen and congresswomen, all of the people in this room that are involved in this decision, that we will act and do something. We will act. President Donald Trump after the Parkland shooting.

Another massacre: Uvalde, Texas – an elementary school, beautiful, innocent second, third, fourth graders. And how many scores of little children who witnessed what happened see their friends die as if they’re on a battlefield, for God’s sake. They’ll live with it the rest of their lives. President Joseph Biden after the Uvalde School shooting.

This is not who we are. America is better than this. President Joseph Biden this time but it could be anybody in power.

 Onward, Christian soldiers! Marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus Going on before. Christ, the royal Master, Leads against the foe; Forward into battle, See his banners go!… Onward, Christian soldiers! Marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus Going on before. a Christian hymn by Arthur Sullivan (1871)

“It’s impossible to pick up the paper or listen to the news on the radio and not get depressed.” I’ve been saying for months, years, really, but it is especially true now. Well, maybe especially true is the wrong way to put it, it was also true after a White eighteen-year-old male killed ten Black people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York a couple of Saturdays ago. Now, it is true again, after another White eighteen-year-old male slaughtered nineteen children and two adults in a school in Texas. I saw a picture today that just wreaked me; small kids, grammar school age, lined up across from the NRA Convention, each holding a picture of another child who had been slaughtered by another child, a larger child, but still a child, really.

CNN said, “We may never know why a shooter gunned down 19 children and two teachers in a massacre Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.” That’s wrong – I’m trying to resist saying “That’s bullshit.” – we do know. We know that a very disturbed young man thought the best way to solve his real and imagined problems is to kill people. Liberals will tell you that guns are the problem, not the violence in our culture or the breakdown of families, they are both right and wrong. Conservatives will tell you that guns are not the problem, the violence in video games, movies, and on TV is the problem along with the breakdown of the family and they are also both wrong and right.

We live in a culture that glorifies violence. Our public heroes – police officers, and people in the military – are the most violent people in our culture. Our press fetishizes Navy Seals sort of ignoring that they kill people for a living. Bruce Willis, as Police Detective Lieutenant John McClain, even killed ten people in Die Hard – all for a good cause, of course, because it was the only thing he could do to solve the problem – Die Hard! is considered a Christmas movie. From a very young age, we are subtly told violence solves problems, it certainly does in movies and video games. Our make-believe culture of violence is a big part of the problem of violence in our real culture.

At the latest NRA Convention, Ted Cruz said that guns were not the problem, broken families, absent fathers, and low church attendance were the problem. I don’t like Ted Cruz, however, I think Ted Cruz does have a point although I would change the causes to dysfunctional families, and absent and distracted parents. I even agree with Cruz on low church attendance but it is much bigger than that, it is the decline in membership in what I would call social clubs. By social clubs, I mean organizations nominally built around a particular interest or activity whose secondary function is the community it generates, including service clubs like the Lions and Rotary Clubs, sports clubs, hobby clubs as well as the community aspects of churches. The great majority – it is probably more accurate to say all – of mass killers are loners, feeling isolated.

To Cruz’s list of problems, I would add three factors that contribute to the background existential angst many Americans feel (maybe most Americans, even if it isn’t conscience). The loss of primacy in our society of White Christian males just because they are White, Christian, and male. The rise of a ruling elite, many of them rich beyond imagination, and the consequential fall and loss of power of the middle class. And for young people especially, Earth’s worsening climate. All of this while the adults in charge don’t seem to really care (after all, if you are over fifty, it is easy to think you will miss the worst of the coming disaster).

I don’t think that having a gun, per se, is the problem. I don’t even think that having an assault rifle is the problem. But, and it is a huge but, when a violent person feels unheard, is isolated and feeling alone, or feels unloved and unrespected, or is upset or is inraged, having a gun handy is a force multiplier and it is much easier to commit catastrophic damage. Having an assault rifle puts that catastrophic damage in a different league. AR15s are a perfect example: it weighs in at about six and a half pounds including twenty rounds in the clip while an old-fashioned hunting rifle, like a Remington Model 141 weighs just shy of eight pounds plus another five pounds for twenty rounds of ammo. The AR15 can accurately fire those twenty rounds in less than ten seconds and the damage caused by even one round of AR-15 ammo is so extensive that it is worthless for killing an animal for food. What it is not worthless for is killing people. That’s what it is designed for, killing people. If all the owner wants is to kill people, the AR15 is the perfect weapon.

Interestingly – which may not be the best word for something as ghoulish as guns and killing people – Switzerland has almost as many guns per capita as the United States and it has had zero mass shootings since 2001. As sort of an aside, I crossed through Switzerland by train in October 1988 and I was surprised at how many young men got on the train with assault rifles (and got off a stop or two later). I’ve been told they were Army reservists although it may have been Knabenschiessen which is a very popular, yearly, Swiss gun festival. End aside.

What is different is that Swiss gun owners are required to take background checks, take comprehensive yearly training with their weapons, and register both their guns and ammunition. In Switzerland, gun ownership is strictly controlled (you could even say well regulated ). In the United States, one can get enraged at an imagined insult, go out and buy a pseudo-assault rifle and kill somebody, or twenty somebodies, within an hour.

Lastly, I think that it is germane to point out that the NRA Convention does not allow guns at their meetings which should give you a good idea of what the NRA thinks of the wisdom of some idiot walking in with a loaded weapon.