Bob Schwartz

October 1, 2015

Oregon College Shooting: Republican Debate to Move to Umpqua Community College

How many shot dead today in Roseburg, Oregon? How many more injured?

We will soon have an exact body count. But while we wait for the numbers, here’s another big question: What is wrong with us?

I now hear that certain Second Amendment-loving, NRA-fearing presidential candidates are tweeting messages of sympathy for the community and for the families of those affected.

So here’s the next questions: Are you kidding me?

The answer is not better mental health oversight, treatment and identification, although that would be nice. The answer is not more guns, guns for everyone, so that the supposedly mentally ill shooters will rationally think twice about being gunned down themselves by a teacher or other student.

The answer is as few guns as we can manage to get along with, day after day. Which should be a lot fewer than we have, according to practically every other civilized country in the world. (Of course, those are ordinary countries, as opposed to exceptional America. Exceptionally absurd numbers of mass shootings, that is.)

The answer is to moderate a gun culture that is out of control. One way to do that is to…reduce the number of guns. Anyone who thinks that the current number of guns is a good idea, or that even more guns would be better, because that is what our Constitutional fathers wanted, is not mentally ill. They are historically, politically, and morally ill.

I am not going to cast too broad a net by suggesting that all the current Republican presidential candidates are strong and unconditional supporters of the NRA. But I think that may be true. In that case, I suggest that instead of holding the next Republican debate at the University of Colorado, they move it to Umpqua Community College. There they will be free to peddle all their NRA talking points nonsense to an audience filled with hundreds, thousands of people who understand all too well what the Second Amendment really and tragically means.

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October 1, 2015

Hillary Campaign Aims Preemptive Threats at Joe: We Will Allow You To Go Out With Respect and Esteem

From the New York Times:

This week, David Brock, who created the pro-Clinton group Correct the Record, which is coordinating with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, told Chicago Magazine his “gut” told him Mr. Biden would not run because “he’ll realize that at this point in his career, he can go out with everyone’s respect and esteem.”

Only the most naïve would not recognize this as a threat. Choose not to run and you “can go out with everyone’s respect and esteem.” Choose to run and…well, we can’t be responsible for what might happen in the heat of an aggressive campaign.

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has paid attention to politics. Politics is hardball, and the Clintons play major league hardball. Just because Joe is one of the most beloved and sympathetic figures in current politics doesn’t give him immunity. From any attacks, including from a candidate who was bitterly denied her first shot at superstardom.

Ultimately this is what Joe’s still-pending decision is all about. Beau’s death is only one part of a bigger life picture. As for Hillary, the only thing more dangerous than a healthy behemoth is a wounded one. The circumstances of the Democratic nomination are far from as clear as they were just months ago. What is clear is the Clinton vow, this time, to win. High-minded, low-minded, pretty or ugly. If, as promised, it is going to get ugly, Joe must be asking himself whether he wants to be in the middle of it all. Or whether he’d rather enjoy his retirement, untouched by relentless and vicious attacks. Who can blame him, whatever he decides.

Still, as Americans, we don’t appreciate threats, political or otherwise. My guess is that Joe and his millions of supporters and admirers don’t appreciate it either.

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