Remember Bailey Holt

Remember Bailey Holt

America’s Daughter

Bailey Holt, age 15, got up, got dressed and went to her high school this week, just as many of our daughters do everyday. She called her mom from school later that day as she lay dying in a pool of her own blood on the floor. All her mom heard was her last breath.

Bailey Holt was the latest victim of gun violence in the eleventh school shooting this first month of 2018. Her murderer was another 15-year-old student, a white U.S. citizen, who brought a firearm to school.  He killed another student and wounded more before being arrested by the police.

With each of these mass shootings, we grow increasingly numb to the carnage inflicted by those with easy access to firearms. We need to remember Bailey and all the others whose promising lives have been senselessly cut short. It is only by sheer luck, that it was not your son or daughter who was caught in the crossfire at school.

How many more of our sons and daughters need to have their lives snuffed out in an instant, lying in their own blood on a schoolroom floor or at a concert or at a sporting event or at church on Sunday? How many more have to live with the physical wounds inflicted or the emotional scars from watching a classmate die?

What will it take America for us to stand up and demand that our legislators give back the massive donations received from the National Rifle Association and others in the rabid Second Amendment purist lobby and pass reasonable restrictions on access to and the use of these deadly weapons?

We require licenses of those entrusted with other deadly weapons. We ensure they understand the dangers inherent in getting behind the wheel of vehicles that weigh more than a ton and can reach speeds over 100 miles per hour or fly a plane or drive bus with passengers. We make sure they know the rules and how to operate these deadly machines safely.

Active shooter drills are not enough. Which is better? Making sure the food supply is safe to eat before it is served or treating food poisoning after it happens?

Arming teachers and administrators fares no better. Even assuming good training and quicker reflexes, we’re treating the problem after the gun enters the school in the hands of someone intent on causing death. We want teachers to be compassionate conveyors of knowledge and critical thinking, not armed and trained to kill assassins.

It is time to ban assault weapons, bump stocks and high capacity magazines. Every gun owned in America needs a required trigger lock. Every gun sale in America should be prevented until the new owner passes a criminal background check and a mental health screening while showing recent completion of a firearm safety class. No more gun show loopholes or private sales. Every firearm owner needs to maintain a license to own and use firearms issued only after demonstrating a through knowledge of safety procedures, the range of bullets fired, proficiency with the firearm they own and insurance covering damages or loss of life from their firearm. Every gun currently in circulation needs to be registered with local, state and federal law enforcement or turned in and destroyed. Ammunition sales need to be recorded and limited to reasonable amounts necessary for hunting or home defense. It should be illegal for anyone other than a licensed firearms dealer to possess more than 100 rounds of ammunition. Everyone licensed to carry a concealed weapon should be identified publicly. We need to fund and support medical research on the causes and treatment of violence.

Don’t fall back on the preposterous construction of the Second Amendment that proclaims everyone should be allowed to own, carry and use firearms wherever or whenever they want, without restriction. The Second specifically mentions “a well regulated militia,” meaning that the founders believed in regulating firearm use. I do not believe we can or should regulate firearms out of existence. I do believe we need to regulate firearms so that not a single parent has to listen to their child die over the phone after being shot, especially at school.

Remember Bailey Holt when you call your legislator to demand an end to gun violence and death in our schools.

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney and serves as a guardian for the elderly and disabled with a Sheboygan county non-profit agency.

Effective Government

Survival depends on effective government

Less government is not always better

We often hear “big government” vs. “small government” comparisons between candidates for public office. Unfortunately, this has created a false dichotomy used to label and demonize “liberal,” “lefty,” “socialist,” “tax and spend” Democrats and curry support for “taxpayer friendly,” “we’ll all get rich” Republicans. It is a fool’s choice.

The issue is more properly framed by asking is the government “effectively” doing what government is supposed to do?

Ever since humans developed language and survival skills, they have banded together to provide for common defense, provision of food and supplies, nurturing the sick and infirm and raising their offspring. Clans and tribes gave way to feudal monarchies that, in turn, morphed into democratic governments. All of these forms of human governments have, to greater or lesser degrees, provided these basic necessities for survival.

With increased economic wealth and power and much larger populations, governments have grown into massive organizations, but they are still charged with carrying out these same basic functions.

In every era throughout human history, cabals of the rich and those who would be rich have stood up and proclaimed, “We need more wealth.” This is usually coupled with claims that the current organization that ensures the collective survival is “too big” and “too expensive.” If only government were smaller, everyone would get to keep more of the wealth they all coveted. Many get sucked in by the slick snake oil sales pitch, believing in trickle down economic myths and tax scams that benefit only the very few at the top of the food chain. Every era of excesses brought on by these headlong cash chasing folks has ended in flames of recession or depression.

It is time to break the cycle before it goes bust once more.

Governments that ensure survival and growth of their large populations will always be large. They will only be truly effective if they satisfy the basic needs of the clan. With the passage of time and increases in knowledge about the interconnectedness of the human endeavor with the natural world these basic needs have become much more complex to ensure. Now we add in concerns about the environment, patterns of disease and increased violence, income inequality and fairness, the need for wild spaces and wild animals, food security, universal healthcare, quality public education, religious freedom, racial and ethnic diversity and a whole host of other concerns.

Those that see these concerns as nothing more than a drain on their personal pocketbooks, fight back by adding claims that the new concerns are not the business of government at all because they impinge on personal liberty. “Why should we have to pay for what we don’t like and don’t use,” but others need and cannot afford, becomes justification for opposition until the flood or fire comes and help does not. They trot out claims that all these concerns will be addressed when we all have an additional $2,000 in tax savings and can contribute to a local charity.

In our world, populated in the billions with dwindling food and water supplies, an increasingly angry climate and nuclear warheads on missiles that can reach everywhere on the planet, we cannot ever go back to those simpler times when the sailboat and steam engine were the main drivers of economic growth and political power. Personal freedom and individual responsibility are not enough to carry us all through. “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable,” is no longer a workable strategy for resolving conflicts. Larger government only works if it effectively addresses these concerns.

It is time for a return to an approach to our collective problems based upon basic assumptions that everyone can contribute to the solutions and should have a voice in the decision-making. None of the concerns that we demand our government address are solely Democratic or Republican concerns. They are valid human concerns that will have an impact on the collective survival of the human tribe and need a collective response.

In our time of turmoil, we each have a voice in choosing how our collective government will ensure the survival of the clan. Will we contribute more and choose people who will manage those resources effectively for the common good? Or will we contribute less, keep more for ourselves and choose those who will lookout for the wealthy and themselves?

Your vote is your voice.

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney who serves as a court appointed guardian for the elderly and disabled with a Sheboygan county non-profit agency.