A Terrible Day in Squirrel Hill

If you read our recent blog, “Famous Movies Made In Pittsburgh,” you know that we live in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, which was the site yesterday of the horrific shootings at a local synagogue.  Unfortunately, attacks like this occur at an appalling rate in this country.  It’s a sickness that leads (mostly) men to take out their rage on defenseless people.  No other economically advanced country has recurrent mass killings like we do.

Each time this happens we all say it has to stop, that we have to take away automatic weapons that have only one purpose, killing people.  Then after a few days, we move on to other things.  

Let’s see if we can make this time different.  Like us, you want to leave the world a better place for your children and grandchildren. Gun reform is a good place to start. And we have the time to work on the issue.

The steps that we need to take are obvious.  With the election coming up, we need to do what we can to make a statement by voting only for candidates who support gun control.

A second step is to give money to candidates and organizations that support gun control. We have been giving regular donations to Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, who since the Sandy Hook school shooting has been a relentless advocate for gun control.  The NRA spends tons of money on its message.  We need to be part of a movement that provides a counter-balance to the NRA.

Third, if the House of Representatives does turn Democratic in this election, we need to hold them to passing a gun reform bill.  Even if the bill doesn’t get through the Senate, it would create a framework for future actions at the state level and hold Senate Republications and any Democrats who vote against the bill accountable for failing to do anything to prevent the recurrent mass killings.

We don’t know what we will say to our 6 year old grandson about these events when we pick him up at his school in Squirrel Hill.   What do we say to him so that he is not fearful, but maybe wary?  It would be nice to be able to say that good people are making progress to take guns away from people who shouldn’t have them.

There was one humorous moment yesterday in all the sad coverage on TV.  Our local congressman, Mike Doyle, was being interviewed.  In the banner at the bottom of the screen, Rep. Doyle was listed as “R-PA.” Republican from Pennsylvania.  We thought he was a Democratic, but there it was, R-PA. When he was asked a question about what could be done to prevent situations like this, he eloquently spoke about the need for responsible gun control, including restricting automatic weapons.  We looked at each other and said, “Is he really a Republican?”  It turns out he’s not.  It’s really a shame that public safety should be a partisan issue.  It’s a shame that a political party would be so craven as to use an issue like gun control to gain power.  

And for you, Mike Doyle, you’ve got our votes!