here's a little something high caliber from this week's show...
The real problem with the gun thing in this country isn't our inability to find the answer.
It's that we're not asking the right question.
A
manhunt is underway for a suspect who fatally shot a police officer
during a traffic stop in Tennessee, authorities said Sunday.
Memphis
Police Officer Sean Bolton, 33, was shot multiple times Saturday night
by a person who was in the car he pulled over, police said.
Memphis Police officer Sean Bolton was shot and killed during a traffic stop.
The assailant remains at large, Memphis police spokeswoman Karen Rudolph said.
A civilian used the officer's radio to notify police about the shooting, she said.
Bolton, who joined the force in October 2010, was taken to hospital in critical condition. He later died.
This
is the third time a Memphis police officer has been killed in the past
four years, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said.
"It
doesn't get any easier. This is a very difficult time, not only for me
as director, but for all the officers you see standing behind me," he
told reporters early Sunday morning.
"And
(it's) a difficult time for our city as well. So I ask that you give us
the respect that we need ... and the space that we need to grieve, and
the time that we need to prepare to lay our brother to rest."
The
shooting follows a series of incidents across the country in which
police have been accused of excessive force at traffic stops.
Former University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing faces charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter for shooting Samuel DuBose in the head during a traffic stop July 19. DuBose's death reignited a familiar chant across the country: "Black lives matter."
It's unclear what led to Bolton's shooting, but the police chief highlighted the risks police officers face on the job.
"We
say so often ... do black lives matter? And at the end of the day, we
have to ask ourselves, do all lives matter -- regardless of race, creed,
color, economic status, what profession that person holds?
All lives
matter," Armstrong said.
"This is just a reminder of how dangerous this job is."
Seems like not a day goes by that we don't hear, see or read of another killing made possible by the invention of that most American of mechanical devices, the handgun.
Fair being fair, of course, it should be noted that the Chinese got the ball, or bullet, as it were, rolling with the invention of gunpowder in the ninth century and a mere 600 years later, the French invented the lock, the firing mechanism that made the handgun possible.
But much like fireworks and the Etch A Sketch, we embraced the weapon and/or weapons made possible by our Asian and European neighbors and made them distinctly and passionately and cold dead finger-ishly our own and then some.
And with each day, as in the aforementioned not a day goes by, that another killing shows up in our morning news feed, the debate, discussion, argument, blah, blah, yada, yada about guns opens up and spritzes and sprays, just like that damn garden hose we keep foolishly trying to patch, knowing full well that it ain't gonna hold and it's gonna pop open again without fail.
And just like some darkly humorous version of lather, rinse, repeat, we take yet another little trip around the game board of "shooting, outcry, argument, cool down and back to business" with little or no change, or even a chance of change, in the way we do business all to the sound that has become an almost depressingly comfortable part of our everyday.
Tick tock, tick tock, bang, bang, shoot, shoot.
The sun comes up and life goes on.
Well, except, of course, for whichever of us has the misfortune of being one of the 289 people, give or take, whose number comes up daily in the "US of A Fill Em Full Of Lead Lottery".
Winning number, of course, a regrettable, but suitably sarcastic not to mention ironic term.
So, Sean Bolton was one of those 289 Saturday night.
Just in time for the Sunday news show staffs to relax a little, once again off the hook for coming up with a topic of discussion in 30, 60 and/or 90 minute chunks.
"Good morning, this is Sunday Talk....guns, dead people, right to bear arms, but first, here's Jamie Lee Curtis for Activia"
Bang, bang, shoot, shoot.
And the wheel on the bus, and the cylinder in the .38, goes round and round.
Until tomorrow, when the second hand sweeps around to the appointed time for the next drawing in the lottery.
Or 289 drawings, actually.
All made possible, of course, by the Chinese and the French but, irrefutably, turned into a distinct, passionate, cold dead fingerish American tradition.
And all because we talk and debate and argue and yammer and holler and debate and argue some more, supposedly in search of an answer to all of this chaos and carnage and destruction and death never once seeming to realize that we have absolutely no chance whatsoever of finding an answer until we wise up and realize that we have to start asking the right question.
The question that will shut the pie holes of those whose only contribution to the discussion is the almost funny, in that way that tragedy can be funny, almost Tourette's like spewing of tried and true, but frankly wearying and, now, even, cliche little bursts of phrase like.....
"2nd Amendment"
"right to bear arms"
and, of course, that guaranteed, rock em, sock em, lock and load NRA crowd pleaser.....
"...cold dead fingers..."
Hmm.
Like, maybe, the cold dead fingers of Memphis police officer Sean Bolton?
Or those girls in Lafayette?
Or the military guys in Chattanooga?
Or the nine people in that church in Charleston?
Or the cold, dead, little fingers of those 20 kids at Sandy Hook?
You mean those cold dead fingers?
Yeah, I know.
2nd Amendment.
Right to bear arms.
I get it.
And, in fairness, it's understandable that that's the only answer you ever offer in these situations.
It's not your fault.
It's our fault.
Because, given the way things work in our country, you're giving the right answer.
We're not asking the right question.
Here it is.
The way things work in our country...ain't workin.
What else ya got?
Let's wrap our heads around that one for awhile.
And maybe, just maybe, mind you, we might find just a few less cold dead fingers in our morning news feed.
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
