You'd have to be comatose if you missed these wake-up calls about unjustifiable risks degrading the quality of life around here.
Steve "The Homer" True, the radio voice of Marquette basketball, is
in critical condition at Froedert Hospital with a serious head injury
after his car was broad-sided in a busy Milwaukee intersection at 10 a.m. by an
alleged drunk driver who ran a red light.
Stories like these, and worse, are routine in Wisconsin.
A day after True's car was hit, and on the same regional medical
campus in Wauwatosa where he is being treated, an "active shooter" was
captured in or near the neonatal unit of Children's Hospital.
"Active shooter" - - that we even have this term in our vocabulary - -
in bars, residences, a day spa, a Brookfield church, an Oak Creek
Temple, on Milwaukee streets - - speaks volumes about the ubiquity of
guns around us.
And about the power of effective, well-financed lobbies that make firearms easily accessible.
These special interests are so strong that a gun industry liability
shield law they pushed through Congress is making it hard for two severely-wounded Milwaukee police officers to sue an area gun store with a history of illegal sales for illegally selling the gun the eventual shooter used to wound them.
Other lobbies have paved the way for pain and misery by hobbling
drunk-driving enforcement in Wisconsin, where your first offense is
still a ticket (and a misdemeanor crime in all other states).
No one should be afraid to drive through a green light at Hampton and
Fond du Lac Avenues - - and in a law-abiding way on any street or road
in the state - - with state-enabled intoxicated motorists bearing down
on them.
No one should take a child for medical care, or get a haircut or
attend worship and encounter the threat of death-by-gun, but special
interests and spineless public officials have enabled the most
irresponsible among us to behave recklessly, injuriously, even fatally
when armed or inebriated.
Also posted at Purple Wisconsin.
You forgot to mention that Steve the Homer was hit broadside by a drunk driver at 10:00 IN THE MORNING.
ReplyDeleteAnd the danger of people in rural areas being shot, presumably accidentally, in their homes by hunters' bullets gone astray, thanks to reduced buffer areas and rifles allowed.
I realize you only have so much time and space to inventory the outrages.
Thanks for all you do--that's a lot to track and type.
@Betsey: I added that fact, which for some reason I'd removed when writing and editing.
ReplyDeleteToday I drove past my Dr's office. Outside the parking lot entrance was a sign of a gun with a red line drawn through it. I thought, good, guns aren't allowed in there. Then I thought, how terrible that the staff and us patients must be reminded that without the sign, someone might bring a gun to a medical building. As my grandmother often said, "What is this world coming to?"
ReplyDelete. . . And so contrary to common sense.
ReplyDeleteCompare Sheriff Clarke's PSA video encouraging citizens to arm themselves with his public statement regarding the active shooter at Children's Hospital.
ReplyDelete