It took an elementary school massacre for our government's leaders to finally call for gun reform. Today President Obama announces a task force. Dianne Feinstein pledges to revive a law reinstating the ban of assault weapons.
Long before Rush Limbaugh made Oxycotton more popular than a kitten
on a YouTube video...Leadership has always been our real drug of choice...
and the consequences have proven to be more harmful than a 4 hour
side effect from Viagra.
Whether it be a notorious Historical figure, a TV Evangelist, or this year's
newest Kardashian sister...we are drawn to follow them as fervently as
the "Marching Band" that John Belushi led bouncing into the wall of a dead
end street in "Animal House".
We may like to criticize Leadership, sometimes idolize it, and hardly ever
understand it, but like it or not... we always end up being led by it.
And if we don't follow them, it's comforting to know that someone else is.
That we are not alone in choosing an easier path by putting our trust, fears
and our desires in somebody other than ourselves.
Once we realize we aren't going to win the next Powerball Lottery or have Brad
and Angelina adopt us, we seem to prefer to hold somebody else accountable when
everything doesn't go quite according to plan. Somebody else to "care" about all
those mundane things that make the world go round.
Our representative government was founded upon the principle that we couldn't
be trusted to care every day...we elect people to do that for us and are only asked
to verify it every 2-6 years if we want them to keep doing it for us...and most of us
don't even care enough to do that!
But occasionally there is an issue that both demands leadership and transcends it!
An issue that reminds us that we are better than that! An issue that calls for us
not to be led by liberals or conservatives or CEO's or celebrities, but by the voice
inside all of us that says...We deserve better! We are better than this!
We may not all be the "Leader of the Free World" or even our local PTA...but maybe
we can at least be the Leader of our own conscience.
When the ban on assault weapons comes up for discussion...let that be one
of those issues! Let that be one of those moments that reminds all of us...how much
we really do care...how much we do call upon ourselves to make a difference when we
believe a difference can be made!
In 1994 President Clinton's Leadership made a difference - He signed a ban on 19 types of assault weapons -almost the same number of children who died at Sandy Hook. That ban was allowed to expire in 2004.
The only significant gun law that was signed into law during the past 4 years was to allow people to carry concealed weapons into our National and State Parks.
We didn't have a call from Leadership to pass a law that required background checks on the people who purchase the 40% of all guns sold at Flea markets, Gun Shows or Online.
No cry from Leadership to pass a law to get all mental health records into the national data-base that is used for all licensed gun purchases.
That call for Leadership now comes against a backdrop of 200 million guns currently owned among our 310 million people. I hope it can be heard!
If we can do that and answer that call for Leadership , who knows where that may lead us next.