“People have become educated, but have yet to become human.”
— Abdul Sattar Edhi
I saw this quote in a New York Times obituary for this gentleman, who was the Pakistani “Father Teresa.” It sums up my feelings this morning. Just when the horror of the Orlando shootings had dissipated slightly, we had two police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. Then came the massacre of five Dallas police officers at the end of a peaceful march. Last week’s events were captured on cell phone videos and streamed around the world. When will we learn?
When will we learn that “those people” (fill in the blank) have children, parents, and neighbors just as we do?
When will we learn that “those people” also have the same rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
When will we learn that violence only begets more and escalated violence, as it did on Thursday night?
When will we learn that unfettered access to semi- or fully-automatic firearms was not the intent of the authors of the Second Amendment? (The 1789 equivalents were cannons, and I don’t think the Founding Fathers believed that every farmer on the frontier needed one.)
Dallas Police Chief David Brown is no stranger to losing fellow officers and family members to gun violence. He was quoted in this op-ed piece from the Dallas Morning News today:
“We’re not going to let a coward change our democracy,” Brown said. “Our city, our country [are] better than that.”
May it be so.
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