Senseless Killing Using Guns

Here is what I wrote today on Facebook after this tragedy (and I saw many other such comments):

I can't help myself from commenting on this latest in a long line of gun violence incidents that plague our country. We need better gun control laws. We need to make a it a lot harder to purchase handguns, which have no purpose other than to maim and kill others at short range. I hope the deaths of perhaps 20 children and 7 adults in Connecticut serves as the tipping point to take on the gun nuts in this country and the group that leads them, the NRA, and make it really hard to get these weapons of individual destruction out of our society.

And what does it say about our national culture that these incidents happen so frequently? We are a country where a frustrated individual can actually contemplate shooting other people because of his or her frustration. Why oh why is that even a viable alternative to people? We are suffering from a disease here, and that disease is taking lives every day. And for the most part, we are ignoring that disease.

We cannot change our culture quickly. But we can make it a whole lot more difficult for the crazy people who entered a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin or a mall in Oregon or, for God's sake, an elementary school in Connecticut and started randomly shooting people to get the weapons that allow them to wreak their havoc. I really do hope this is the tipping point.

Letter to the Editor: Recall Scott Walker

My letter to the editor of the Wisconsin State Journal about the recall Scott Walker election, written on May 31, 2012:

Scott Walker has collected millions from out-of-state billionaires and millionaires, which he has used to misrepresent and lie about the record of Tom Barrett. Do you think any of those donors to Walker’s campaign care one whit about the people of Wisconsin? They care about one thing: making sure the Tea Party agenda is not put off track in this state and country and that ALEC can continue to write legislation that right-wing legislators duly pass without even reading the fine print. This is so out of whack with the Wisconsin progressive tradition that I can hardly recognize my state anymore.

It is tragic that we have a governor and legislative autocrats who have so divided us that political civility has disappeared. With Scott Walker we have a governor who cannot show his face in Madison. He cannot walk around the capital during the farmers market. He cannot walk up State Street. He will hear derisive remarks anywhere he appears. This certainly could not be said of Tommy Thompson or Jim Doyle. Vote for Tom Barrett and bring back civility and sanity to our politics and governance. Recall Scott Walker, the only sitting governor with a criminal defense fund.