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Gun violence

Where do we go from here? If the answer is the familiar debate about the Second Amendment, gun rights and reforms, then this national sorrow will continue. But if the answer is a commitment by all to begin with the goal of reducing gun violence in all forms, and to make a promise to seek out areas of compromise, then change can come.

For those infuriated by our intractable politics around gun violence, our collective inability to address its root causes, then the appropriate starting place is to maintain hope. It is paramount to maintain the hope that this nation can — and will — change, just as it is paramount to understand that bringing about this change requires a generational commitment.

There were more than 45,000 firearm deaths in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those deaths took many forms: mass shootings, suicides, accidental shootings, domestic violence. Gun deaths have been on the rise: “The 45,222 total gun deaths in 2020 were by far the most on record, representing a 14% increase from the year before, a 25% increase from five years earlier and a 43% increase from a decade prior,” according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

The vast majority of Americans support many policies that would contribute to an overall reduction of gun violence. These include universal background checks for all gun sales, the creation of a federal database to track gun sales and even a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Safe storage laws and red flag laws would save lives. So, too, would additional training and licensing requirements.

The Second Amendment is not without limits. As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the 2008 Heller decision, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. (It is) not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

A mass shooting should never happen, but in the United States mass shootings are routine. Our hearts break for the victims and their loved ones, just as our heart breaks for a nation that has failed to address something so horrific and preventable. But we refuse to accept this reality as the status quo.

Confederate Heroes Day

It’s a measure of progress that few Texans celebrate Confederate Heroes Day. But there it is, a stain on the calendar that pops up every Jan. 19. It’s too late for 2022, but the Legislature has a chance to make this the last time Texas suffers this embarrassment by eliminating the holiday.

There’s not much to the day, in terms of ceremony or recognition. Few would miss it; the fact that it remains is a testament to a handful of noisy holdouts who would make a fuss, something every politician instinctively tries to avoid. The state doesn’t even suspend business for this tainted day.

The fact that few even realize the holiday exists, though, doesn’t justify leaving it on the books. It is not harmless. The state is honoring those who rebelled against the United States, those who supported the cause of enslaving fellow humans.

Black Texans in particular are insulted by this, but all Texans who also love being Americans and recognize the true, ugly history of the Confederacy’s rebellion suffer when the state recognizes traitors.

Perhaps that label strikes some as too strong. But the actual history of the Confederacy, not the gauzy portrayals used to justify civil-rights abuses for a century after the war, must be faced directly. The Civil War was necessary to preserve the American union and ensure it could go forward without the shame of slavery. Any talk about states’ rights or maintaining a way of life is an effort to obscure reality.

Self-styled “patriots” who revere the American founding and the Constitution should take as much offense at honoring the Confederacy as anyone. It’s anti-American to revere the rebellion.