עד מתי (Ad Ma-tie)
How long?”
In different ways the authors of the Bible’s Book of Psalms ask this question over and over again:
How long will wickedness, violence and terror reign on the earth?
The Psalmist’s question 3000 years ago is my question today. Vickie and I were in a Wal-Mart in Fort Myers when hell descended on a Wal-Mart in El Paso. So I feel more connected than usual to this latest outbreak of hate filled terror.
It was easier today than in other shootings to envision my wife and I mowed down by machine gun fire as we vainly scrambled for refuge in a crowded store.
How long will we allow the NRA to allow people with AK-47 rifles to unload their magazines on innocent people? How long will we allow lives and dreams to be destroyed in an instant just because someone feels like doing so?
Mass shootings are no longer unexpected. Each subsequent tragedy raises the questions not if there will be a next one, but where and when will the next one be?
So twenty more people are now dead. Scores of others are seriously wounded because the Congress of the United States is content with our nation having the highest rate of deaths to gun violence in the world.
Stricter gun control will not stop all the shootings, but they will stop many. Background checks for all, licenses for all and a ban on assault type weapons are necessary – no brainer really –steps our nation must take.
Rabbi Sarah Hronsky wrote that we must never become numb to the carnage that the NRA fights for the right to occur and too many Senators and members of the House of Representatives condone by their failure to act.
The second amendment to our Constitution speaks of the rights of states to arm and train a “well-regulated militia.” The second amendment does not say that anyone or anybody should be able to possess and use a weapon capable of killing dozens of people in little more than an eye blink.
Our gun laws are a national disgrace!
Health care should be a right not a privilege for those who can afford it. Owning a gun by contrast should be a privilege like driving a car, for which one must prove oneself worthy and capable.
We Americans need to have the guts to vote for politicians who will stand up to the NRA and pass gun laws that will save lives.
We need to vote for a President who will lead the way to a safer United States.
How long? How long until this country finally comes to its senses?
Finding Ourselves In The Bible 
As usual my friend, my Rabbi,
You put words to my feelings!… Again! Thank you. Kathy
Sent from my iPhone
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So well said, I get so angry with each of these mass shootings, when will it end? How come a country like the US cannot put an end to these shootings? Gun control, mental healthcare, you are right, we need to elect leaders who can reverse this terrible trend.
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Thanks Rabbi – that’s always interested me that the constitution states about the right to own arms but it is restricted to a ‘well regulated militia’; yet this is misconstrued that each person has the right. Another desperate tragedy in El Paso. I am speechless.
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