Our Children's Keeper

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/06/opinion/school-shooting-georgia-dad-arrested.html

("Blaming a Parent, Again, for Failed Gun Laws")

We have spent decades flailing, gun manufacturers seemingly fully protected from the clear and present danger created by their flooding this nation with more weapons than people populating it. If we can't kill the head of the snake, where else can we turn?

We have damaged the NRA, its former leader, Wayne Lapierre, now having resigned in disgrace, civilly liable for wrongs committed by him against the organization he once headed. But if this has slowed the gun industry, it is hard to notice.

And while there has been some encouraging recent federal action in regard to background checks, it still feels as if the government has more than one hand tied behind its back in this fight.

So with these criminal prosecutions, there has been a decision to make this personal. If this plague cannot be addressed with requisite force at a macro level, maybe, so it is suggested, we can deal a more significant blow at the micro level. It is a kind of "broken windows" philosophy of attacking this problem. Don't make a sweeping pronouncement. Chip away, one tiny piece at a time, until the base crumbles.

This does seem so small and futile, sending a message that will largely fall upon deaf ears and do little to slow a runaway train. But nothing else has worked and there are dead bodies littered everywhere we look. And anything that brings pause in this country's insane love affair with guns is something that must be seriously considered. 

If we are not our brother's keeper, at least we are our children's.