Make Them Look At Human Gun Carnage

Make the NRA and their GOP sycophants look at the torn and shredded remains of those American children and adults slaughtered by firearms. Number one reason children die in this country? Someone shoots them.

I survived an act of gun violence in 1984 when I was held up and shot in the head at point blank range. The bullet remains lodged in the brain. Members of our American family – including our children – are being shot down every day. It is time to make those preventing a safer country to get a close up look at reality.

The author, weeks after the shooting, September, 1984.

Make these accessories to murder look at the pictures, up close. Film, photograph, and record their reactions to seeing these pictures.   

Put them in a crime scene and say look at this torn up child. Still don’t like background checks? Keep looking. Still don’t want to ban assault weapons? Say that out loud, for the camera that’s trained on you while you’re looking at this horror.  

Then, with the pictures of human carnage present, have them publically explain why this carnage is the price members of our American family must pay for our freedom. 

The greed-driven thugs who oppose universal background checks, red flag laws, and a ban on assault weapons, are directly or indirectly, accessories to murder and attempted murder. 

James Brady and author, circa 1990
James Brady and author, circa 1990

If anyone thinks, even for a moment, that labelling these folks accessories to murder is a stretch, it’s not. Not even a little. 

The Cornell Law School’s online Legal Information Institute says an accessory before-the-fact (the crime), 

 ”is a person who aids, abets, or encourages another to commit a crime but who is not present at the scene. An accessory before the fact, like an accomplice may be held criminally liable to the same extent as the principal. Many jurisdictions refer to an accessory before the fact as an accomplice.

See  Evans v. State, 145 So. 3d 674 (Miss. 2014); accessory”

Now, the NRA leadership and its GOP sycophants know  – they know – children and adults in our American family will get shot and killed because of them. They know thousands upon thousands will get shot and survive. Peoples lives blown to pieces because these are greed-driven thugs who want money. Profit before people. Let the people die.

Nothing that I propose here should happen without the permission of the survivors of gun violence, their families, and the families of those who did not survive the act of gun violence. 

Finding the Honesty & Story Telling Sanctuary

If you’re going to tell a story, start with the facts as best you know them. Set down what you know for sure, then move on from there. 

Your voice, dialect, the walk-of-life in your speech. They have and deserve no say over your setting words down voice. Your writing voice. Set the words down when they arrive. 

I, for one, know for a fact that sometimes, the only reason a nice sentence of mine reaches the page, was because I managed to stay out of the way. Something deeper down – in me – writes the words. I write them down. Had my conscious mind interfered, the sentence would never see the light of day.

I believe it’s a simple, non-negotiable reality; any artist of any walk of life deserves to strive for. Unflinching honesty. Honesty is your massive ally. Period. It may take you time to discover and trust this. That proves you’re a human being. There are times summoning up an ample supply of moxie may be needed when, well, openly telling someone you love them. There is no overture more honorable, when it is honesty in purest form. There’re are times when some have been so wounded by life, that their capacity to trust, let someone in close, not hold onto the life management patterns that are built in dishonesty. We needed them when we were kids, or younger and not lying meant catching a beating, or god knows what else.

The challenge for many of us is that of disengaging from dishonesty on all fronts, be honest about the missteps. Own them. Apologize. Nothing any of this makes you a bad person. It’s the unhealthy patterns that need to be disengaged from. Which brings us back an ally called honesty.

Honesty is a friend of mine – albeit a bit of a Drill Sgt. friend at times. Honesty is a singular part of my life’s foundation. My life is built on stable ground – the all of my life. Say your words from the soul-soil of your honesty. Tell the story, your story, as best you can, with all your heart if you’d like.

Honesty is also a sanctuary we all deserve. Yes, you too.


For RVP

An Inaugural Post Of Sorts

I say inaugural because, while this remains the Kahrmann Blog, it’s home has a new web address. And why, pray tell, the change? Because your’s truly has the software and app-management skill of a tree stump. When I made the decision to move the blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, and used a host named Bluehost, all hell broke loose.

  • The blog content that did get transferred was incomplete. Three years of blog posts were missing.
  • Trying to get things resolved through Bluehost customer service is as easy as climbing Mt. Everest, without extra oxygen, all while having an asthma attack. Nothing worked.
  • I want to keep writing here. I can’t and won’t allow any app glitch or misstep on my part in resolving it from, well, keeping a good blog down. Yuck yuck.
  • And so, the journey here continues. Hopefully I can recover all the posts and then learn how to import them here.

A belated Happy New Year to each of you. Be safe always.

Peter

Books Read – 2022

1. The Fruit of the TreeWharton, Edith
2. A Traveler from AltruriaHowells, William Dean
3.The Job: An American NovelLewis, Sinclair
4. To Each His OwnSciascia, Leonardo
5. Free AirLewis, Sinclair
6. Our Mr. WrennLewis, Sinclair
7. The Trail of the HawkLewis, Sinclair
8. MantrapLewis, Sinclair
9. The Innocents: A Story For LoversLewis, Sinclair
10. Work Of ArtLewis, Sinclair
11. Don’t Save Anything: The Uncollected Writings of James SalterSalter, James
12. The Doctor’s SonO’Hara, John
13. Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a FamilyMann, Thomas
14. Travels with Charley: In Search of AmericaSteinbeck, John
15. The Ha-Ha CaseConnington, J.J.
16. The League of Frightened Men (Nero Wolfe, #2)Stout, Rex
17. The Rubber Band (Nero Wolfe, #3)Stout, Rex
18. The Red Box (Nero Wolfe, #4)Stout, Rex
19. Too Many Cooks (Nero Wolfe, #5)Stout, Rex
20. Some Buried Caesar (Nero Wolfe, #6)Stout, Rex
21. They Knew Dickens: Recollections by the Friends and Family of Charles DickensNorris, Michael *
22. Black Orchids (Nero Wolfe, #9)Stout, Rex
23. The Golden Spiders (Nero Wolfe, #22)Stout, Rex
24. Some Buried Caesar/The Golden SpidersStout, Rex
25. And Be a Villain (Nero Wolfe, #13)Stout, Rex
26. Might as Well Be Dead (Nero Wolfe, #27)Stout, Rex
27. The Black Mountain (Nero Wolfe #24)Stout, Rex
28. The Crime at Black Dudley (Albert Campion Mystery, #1)Allingham, Margery
29. Curtains for Three (Nero Wolfe, #18)Stout, Rex
30. Plot it Yourself (Nero Wolfe, #32)Stout, Rex
31. Three Doors to Death (Nero Wolfe, #16)Stout, Rex
32. Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of WrathSteinbeck, John
33. If Death Ever Slept (Nero Wolfe, #29)Stout, Rex
34. Tigerlily’s OrchidsRendell, Ruth
35. The Professor’s HouseCather, Willa
36. A Hole in TexasWouk, Herman
37. The Greater Journey: Americans in ParisMcCullough, David

Childhood Honesty Meets Labor Day

When you’re a little kid, at least when I was, your experience of the world around you was, unbeknownst to you, driven at times by mixture of fact and ignorance, served on a plate of absolute honesty. When I was wrong about something I was capable of being wrong on a massive scale. Having arrived at these moments honestly, they’re all okay with me 

Example. My friends and I called each other douchebag way before I had any idea what a douchebag was. When I found out, I was mortified!

Which brings me to today’s holiday, Labor Day. When I was a kid, I was aware of no reason to alter my view that labor day was the day all mother’s tried to have their children. It was their goal. Made all the sense in the world to me.

So, here’s to childhood, and here’s to labor day!