We the People: Where is our civilization headed?

Barbara Parker, the mother of slain television reporter, Alison Parker, told the Daily News that “We are no longer a civilized country” after her daughter and her cameraman were murdered on live television in Virginia. What will it take for Americans to put aside their television remote control devices and X-Box game controllers to address the fact that we are going to experience greater and greater senseless violence if we remain unmoved in the face of the parade of senseless shootings?

We must do more than wring our hands when these things happen or the Second Amendment will be made more important than our husbands, wives, sons, daughters and friends. We cannot allow ourselves to remain desensitized to deadly violence. The reasonable people in America know that sensible federal gun regulation could be put in place if the NRA and its lobbyists could be held in check long enough for our legislators to make laws. The hodge-podge of state regulations and the ridiculous gun show loopholes assure that anyone who wants a deadly weapon can get one or have another person get it for them without a problem.

NYC is still seeing a steady rise in gun violence and weapons trafficking. There was a senseless shooting at a hookah lounge in Brooklyn last week. There are unnecessary tragedies repeated in Connecticut and South Carolina and all other states in the Union.

Alison Parker was living her dream and antagonizing no one when her bright life full of promise intersected with the dark trail of a coward who couldn’t keep a job but had no problem buying a gun. Conservatives are anxious to put ID checks in place to protect the polls from unregistered voters so how about ID checks for gun buyers. I want to know why any angry and maladjusted individual who cannot find or keep a job has no problem buying a deadly efficient semiautomatic pistol. An angry ex-worker, a frustrated student, a wannabe action hero can go to a local gun store and buy any amount of weapons without any reason or any training in firearms safety. The federal government leaves it to the states to enforce a porous and inconsistent system of gun laws because that is the way the NRA and the gun manufacturers want it to be.

The battle to improve that situation has two new recruits but will that be enough to move our craven elected officials to search their souls to find the will to do what is right. We need a federal law in place with reasonable requirements for training and a thorough background check. Mandatory insurance and central registration for firearms purchases like what we require car owners to do would help to make our nation safer.

The shooting of Alison along with her cameraman Adam Ward on live television in suburban Moneta, Virginia just adds a new name to the now familiar list of locations of infamous gun violence stretching from Austin to Virginia Tech.

Andy Parker, Alison’s devastated father said that he and his wife are already taking the fight for change to the airwaves and he has received support from Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and Mark Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords, the ex-congresswoman almost assassinated by a lunatic’s gun in Arizona.   New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an outspoken proponent of gun legislation has a gun safety group, “Everytown for Gun Safety”, that can help people work to end gun violence in America. If you are fed up with the status quo reach out to #Whatever It Takes. Everytown for Gun Safety will have a Day of Action on September 10th in Washington, D.C. when Congress returns from recess.