El Paso church

Gilroy, El Paso, Dayton—three US mass shootings in a single week, not to mention accidental shootings, suicides, and homicides in that same week and during this yea do farr. In a gun-loving, open-carry state like Texas, pray tell, where was the NRA’s vaunted “good guy with a gun” ready to take down the shooter? Many mass shootings are copy-cat crimes or bids for glory based on Trumpian sentiments. It’s therefore good that the names of shooters are barely mentioned. How many more people have to be killed before collective action is taken? We are all sitting ducks. (I’ve lived in El Paso myself.)

Any American president is a role model. Mr. Trump is certainly complicit both in his use of racist rhetoric and his support for “gun rights.” It’s high time to offer a nationwide gun buy-out and to override the NRA and gun manufacturers and follow the lead of Australia and New Zealand in curbing individual gun ownership to cut down on gun deaths and massacres which are a risk to us all. As for the Second Amendment, let’s go back to the Founders’ original call for “a well-regulated militia” and ditch the only recently revised, painful, and deadly experiment in personal arms’ possession and proliferation. The Founders would never have sanctioned “rights” to carry assault weapons. Don’t the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” trump the right to ”bear arms”?

Nor is the “mental illness” excuse being pinned on mass shooters by Trump actually very credible, unless he is referring to his own mental health. Is he proposing a full-court press against mental illness, about which there is little consensus and often no good treatment? Mental health practitioners would first advise presidents not to fan the flames with pejorative rhetoric. Experts are debunking the mental illness narrative touted by the president, Again, the man first blamed “fake news,” then he and his mealy-mouthed enablers tried to make the case for the lone wolf, as if every shooter acts in a total vacuum, completely free of any social influences. Anyway, what does Mr. Trump propose to make that sure that those suffering from “mental illness” don’t have access to firearms? It does seem that now public opinion is surging against the Republican Party, Donald Trump, and “gun rights,” causing them all to be running scared. Most Republicans and Mr. Trump, to the extent they have commented at all, have been extremely scripted and defensive. And his advisers have propelled Trump to make an obligatory condolence trip to El Paso, a city where he is not welcome. Let’s see if he sends out a dog whistle there to his hard core to indicate that this is just for show. His true believers realize that he is forced by political necessity to read words on the teleprompter, so they will pay more attention to his tweets and ad-libs.

Trump’s Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was quick to come out absolving the president of any blame, while the man himself, at first, remained silent and stayed out golfing. Republicans and, later Trump himself, honed in on the fact that Obama was not blamed for shootings occurring during his presidency. Did Obama ever support the NRA and ”gun rights”? Did Obama ever question Trump’s birthplace? Did Obama ever disparage people of different races and ethnicities?

Ivanka Trump sent out condolences via Titter, but many were not buying it. Melania, who has been MIA for months now, said nothing. She must be waiting impatiently for her husband’s term to be over so she and her son can leave.

A report in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed fatalities among children and young people in 2016. After motor vehicle accidents, the most frequent cause of death among the young was firearms. Firearm deaths claimed the lives of more than 3,140 children and teens in 2016, according to research compiled by a team from the University of Michigan. That equates to approximately eight children dying per day due to preventable deaths related to firearms. The rate of firearm-related death for those aged 1 to 19 years has stayed around the same for nearly the past two decades, the analysis said, although that rate is still more than 36 times as high as the average rate across 12 other high-income countries. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-major-causes-

Much has been made of the similarities between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump: the yellowish hair, quirky rhetoric, brash predictions. But Johnson is rather more erudite and literate than Trump, though possibly equally destructive.

How to prevent children’s hot car deaths? Couldn’t working parents have an app on their phone or have their spouse call to remind them when they have small children in the car, lest they forget they are there? This seems a problem that is solvable. Maybe just leaving a permanent reminder at their desk or on their work computer or phone would be sufficient. “Did you lock your car? Are your kids still inside?” If parents can remember to go to work on time and where to park each day, surely. they can find a way to remember that their kids in the back seat.

With interest rates now reduced to 2 or 2.25%, I am reminded of paying 8% on my own home loan back in the day.

I’’ve asked Honduran friends to comment on the following and will report back on what they say.