Healing from ballfield shooting begins with civility
James Raglandsays now isn’t the time to talk about gun control; it’s time to talk about our divided house and urgent need for civility.
It was another dark day in America, a humid morning punctuated by horrific violence on a baseball diamond in Alexandria, Va., just minutes from the nation’s capital.
A lone gunman, James Thomas Hodgkinson, opened fire for several minutes Wednesday on Republican lawmakers who were practicing for a bipartisan charity game.
The Illinois man with a political ax to grind came close to carrying out a mass slaughter for the ages.
He would’ve succeeded, too, were it not for the courageous actions of U.S. Capitol police officers on the scene. Still, four people were shot, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
Hodgkinson, 66, was fatally injured in the shootout with police.
What led him from his hometown of Belleville, Ill., to the baseball park in suburban D.C.? Michael Hodgkinson told The New York Times that his brother was so upset about the election of President Donald Trump that he had traveled to Washington in recent weeks to protest.
“I know he wasn’t happy with the way things were going, the election results and stuff,” Michael Hodgkinson said.
He wasn’t close to his brother and said he had no idea why James Hodgkinson stayed in Washington for so long. “Totally out of the blue,” he said, adding that his brother was engaged in politics, had volunteered for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and led a normal life.
The gunman’s brazen act of cowardice was reminiscent of the horrific assassination attempt against U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., just more than six years ago.
Six people were killed, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old, in that shooting outside a grocery store in Tucson, where Giffords was meeting with constituents. Thirteen others were injured, including Giffords, who survived a bullet that pierced her brain.
I can only imagine the dizzying sense of déja vu that the latest shooting triggered in Giffords, who has tirelessly championed for stricter gun control laws.
She issued a somber statement that put the mass shooting in perspective. “This shooting,” Giffords said, “is an attack on all who serve and on all who participate in our democracy.”
Undoubtedly, the shooting at the ballfield — as well as the San Francisco shooting at a United Parcel Service facility that left four people dead — will renew calls for stricter gun control.
If you want to have that argument, take it outside.
But the Virginia violence suggests something else, just as urgent, is needed: a national reconciliation between Democrats and Republicans.
We must take deliberate and earnest steps to ease the toxic and volatile climate that churns out misguided souls like Hodgkinson.
The virulent political sniping must come to a grinding halt.
It was refreshing to see lawmakers on both sides of the aisle take a moment Wednesday to reflect on what’s important: human life and the precious threads that bind us all in times like these.
Trump, in particular, delivered a solemn and straightforward assessment of a tragedy that could’ve been much worse. He offered hope and support for the victims and heaped praised on the heroic officers.
“Everyone on that field is a public servant: our courageous police, our congressional aides, who work so tirelessly behind the scenes with enormous devotion, and our dedicated members of Congress, who represent our people. We may have our differences,” the president said, “but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country.”
To put a fine point on it, Trump added, “We are strongest when we are unified.”
Thank you, Mr. President, for a calm and measured response — which, by the way, was given before Trump was aware of the gunman’s disdain for him.
But Trump’s immediate message was not pitch-perfect.
I wanted the president to note, in unequivocal terms, that we’ve endured far too many mass shootings in America - at least 154 so far this year. If we’re not going to talk about guns, we’ve got to delve deeper into the underlying issues.
It also struck me as an ideal time for the president to urge all Americans politicians especially — to not let their anger and hostilities get the best of them.
We can’t allow our warring political factions to let this tragic moment slip by without serious reflection and resolve. We need them to recognize and acknowledge the long-lasting damage they’ve been inflicting on political discourse in America.
They must make clear that violence, in any form, is not the answer — not in state halls, political rallies, news conferences, anywhere.
Sanders, whom the shooter had supported, issued a statement saying just that.
“Let me be as clear as I can be,” the senator said. “Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society. And I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. Real change can only come about through nonviolent action.”
Action is the key word. To fully restore civility in America, our political leaders can’t talk their way out of this.
They must lead by example. That is the best way, possibly the only way, to keep distraught souls such as Hodgkinson from falling off the deep end — and potentially taking others with them.