Saturday, October 7, 2017

Of Frogs and Mass Shootings

“If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.” (Version of the boiling frog story from Daniel Quinn's The Story of B, source: Wikipedia)

Columbine.

Sandy Hook.

Orlando.

San Bernardino.

Las Vegas.

The Frog Experiment story is not true. The point it makes is all too true.  I know that we as a nation have the ability to find a solution which protects the right to own a gun and at the same time protects society from mass shootings. Do you know that a mass shooting, defined as 4 or more victims, has happened 275 times in 2017 in the United States? Have we lost our ability to be outraged? I have no desire to undo the U.S. Constitution.  I have every desire to see it interpreted in a way which protects the very people for whom it exists. We are smart enough to do this, right?


If we do not act this time I fear we never will. We have grown way too comfortable in the boiling pot.  Let’s get out while we can.  How can we say we bring ‘shalom’ from the God of Peace if we do not start a chorus for doing something rather than nothing.  I do not have the solution, but I want to find one while we still can feel that the water is boiling.

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