The day President Reagan was shot

 

On Monday, March 27, 2023, a shooter got into a Christian school in Nashville, TN. The shooter killed three children and three adults before being killed by responding police. The usual tug of war has been going on between the Rethuglicans, who want to continue loosening gun control laws, and Democrats, who want to at least ban automatic weapons. People who have survived school shootings, parents, and other reasonably minded folk march, contact their legislators, and speak out against school shootings/mass shootings which just continue to occur more frequently.

Nothing will get done this time either.

Nothing will get done until the children of the Rethuglican legislators are shot up.  It’s inevitable such a thing could happen. Violent people have already begun attacking legislators and their families.

I get a newsletter called This Day in History. On Thursday, I was reminded that President Ronald Reagan was shot in Washington D.C. on March 30, 1981. He’d only taken office in January. He was at the Washington Hilton for a meeting. He had his entire entourage with him as he exited the hotel and headed toward his limo.

There were people standing by, watching. I suppose the Secret Service had asked them to stay in place. Nevertheless, a young man came forward, his gun came up and he started shooting. The agent closest to President Reagan grabbed him and literally shoved him into the limo. Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, was down and gravely wounded. Another Secret Service agent and a D.C. policeman were also wounded.

The other agents grabbed the shooter and pushed him up against the wall, disarming him. The young man’s name was John Hinckley. If ever a shooter was disturbed, it was Mr. Hinckley.  He’d seen the movie Taxi Driver, starring Robert DeNiro. Co-starring was Jodie Foster, then a young teenager. She was playing a hooker the taxi driver apparently wanted to rescue. For some reason, the taxi driver decided shooting a politician was the way to do it.

Well, Hinckley watched this movie over and over and over. He was entranced by Jodie Foster. In 1981, she was just beginning college. Hinckley got it into his head that he could impress and maybe woo Foster if he acted out the role of the taxi driver. Why shoot just any old politician? Why not go for the President?

It turned out that President Reagan had been wounded too. The bullet collapsed one lung and just missed his heart. Still, he kept his sense of humor, telling the doctors he hoped they were all Republicans. And when his wife came in to see him after his surgery, he said, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

I remember it very well. I was in shock. How could the President, surrounded by the Secret Service and police, get shot on a public street in Washington, D.C.?  Did the President get thoughts and prayers from his party in Congress?  I don’t remember that part.

I do remember that James Brady, the Press Secretary, had a severe brain injury and was never the same. He and his wife wanted a gun bill passed but, of course, there was resistance from the Republican party. The Bradys and other safe-gun-law activists worked on legislators to pass a bill that would…gasp! Require background checks and a waiting period.

The Brady bill was first introduced in Congress in 1987. President Reagan had recovered from his gunshot wound and so did the Secret Service agent and DC policeman. James Brady did not, not fully. Again, he was never the same and needed intensive therapy to improve to the point at which he was.

The bill didn’t pass the first time, nor the second, nor the third. On and on it went until Rep. Chuck Schumer introduced it for the last time in 1993. Who even remembered what happened in 1981, right?  James Brady who? But this time it finally passed.

It didn’t go far enough.

In 1994, somehow legislation got through that banned automatic weapons, and President Clinton signed it into effect. Unfortunately, the ban was for ten years only. Did it help much? Results were mixed and the ban lapsed in 2014.

I remember Columbine. That was another unheard-of event. Two kids shot up their classmates and teachers. How was that possible? Sandy Hook was heartbreaking. Among those killed were too many babies, just six or seven years old. Surely something would be done. Thoughts and prayers, that was it.

It feels like every time I turn around, there is a new school shooting or a mass shooting.  Every time, I feel sick at heart. I know nothing will be done. Rethuglicans will offer their useless and hypocritical “thoughts and prayers” but that’s all.

Why are these legislators so willing to allow children to be slaughtered like that? It’s because they are controlled by the National Rifle Association. There are lists of legislators and the obscene amounts of money they receive from the NRA.

What can I do but vote them out? However, I don’t live in a state that puts guns ahead of children. It’s up to the voters there, the grandparents, parents, and Gen Z kids who need to go to the polls and vote out those legislators. They must stop voting against their own best interests, but that means they need to wake the fuck up.

I’ve written before about my “I didn’t think this would ever happen to me day”. That was December 13, 1972. A custodian went berserk, pulled out a machete, stabbed a security guard, and took a hostage. He held the hostage in his office, which was right next to my classroom. Anyway, now when there’s a school shooting, I always remember lying on the cold floor while the crisis played out. I also have wondered: what if that custodian had had a gun instead of a machete? He began his rampage in our crowded cafeteria.   How many people could he have potentially killed?

Yes, But... Rattlebone

 Yes, I know he's been indicted. I know there may be 30 charges in the indictment. Maybe he'll be arraigned on Tuesday. The media is going crazy with information about Turnip Man and totally forgetting there was another school shooting, fascism is spreading across the red states, and treasonous legislators not only still walk around free spouting their poison, they're still seated in the Congress wasting taxpayer money and doing nothing to help our country.

So I'm numb to the news about HIM. I want to see more accountability for instigating and/or assisting in the violent coup attempt on January 6th.  Dan Rather said it best anyway.

I did, however, just finish a really good book.

The display table as I walked into our library got me again! I cannot go by it without my eye falling upon a book that pulls me toward it. This time it was Rattlebone by Maxine Clair.  I hadn’t heard of the author, but the unusual title attracted me and I had to pick it up. The review on the back promised plot twists and new interesting characters.  I looked at the inside jacket and learned that Rattlebone is a real place. I had to check it out and read it.

 

There are different featured characters in this series of vignettes but one shows up most of the time: Irene Wilson, just beginning adolescence at the beginning. By the end, she is a senior in high school. In between, she does a lot of growing up with a lot of events in her young life.

 

I learned that Rattlebone is or was a Black community within Kansas City. The story begins in the early 1950s, before Brown Vs. Board of Education, so Irene attends a segregated school.  She has a troubled home life because her parents don’t get along. Still, she has a close friend or two throughout her teen years. She also keeps a secret journal. In that way, she reminds me of myself. I used my journals to pour out my heart with secrets I couldn’t share with others.

 

There is humor; there is drama; there is tragedy and trauma. I wouldn’t say that it would keep you on the edge of your seat with suspense, but it is a page-turner. I couldn’t put the book down. I would recommend it to anyone, especially those who enjoy historical fiction. I can’t believe I’m labeling this as historical fiction, lol, because the story mostly takes place just a few years before I was born.

 

 

What Can I Say?

There has been yet another school shooting.  There have been so many, it seems that one blends in to the other. I can’t keep them all straight. All I know is that too many children, teachers, aides, administrators, and others have died because apparently, this country values its guns over the lives of children and adults. I am so sad and so angry that I can’t focus my thoughts well. I can’t say it any better than Robert Reich, Heather Cox Richardson, or anyone else. I feel absolutely zero optimism that anything will be done about these deadly weapons, despite words from President & Dr. Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of NY. The National Rifle Association is deep into the back pockets of legislators. Nothing will change until THEIR children are killed in a mass shooting.

I read that Elon Musk of Twitter and other social platforms (like Facebook?) are going to institute or are considering instituting paid memberships. Right now, I’m thinking, go ahead. Start charging. It’s probably time I get off social media completely and find another way to stay in touch with my family and friends. I dread the news: the mass shootings, the latest fascist acts being perpetrated in FL, TX, and other red states, and the latest poisonous spouting of the man who should’ve been in jail by now.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Japan’s gift of cherry trees to the United States. This was in 1912, and the trees were planted around the Basin near Jefferson’s Memorial. I have seen the trees in blossom only twice in all the years I lived in the DC area. The first time, I was about 12 and during spring break, we drove to Washington to see the sights. The cherry trees took my breath away. I had a Polaroid camera but at that time, the pictures were only in black and white. I wished I had a color film camera to capture the beautiful blooms.

The second time was about 30 years later, in 1996. I was working as an interpreter for the Deaf and had become very familiar with the Metro transit system to get around town. My first husband, Rich, and I took the kids to DC during their spring break. We drove to the subway station and parked there. Using the Metro, we could transfer from train to train and get all around town. One of the first places we wanted to see was the cherry trees. 

They weren’t at their peak yet, but they were still pretty. I had a camera with me—one of those Instamatics so that I didn’t have to load the film.  I took lots of pictures on that trip but was only able to find one of the cherry trees.  We spent most of our day visiting the Smithsonian museums.

 

                                           That's my son in the Cub Scout cap

Today is another anniversary: the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in western Pennsylvania.  It led to a partial meltdown that released toxic gas into the air on March 28, 1979.

By unhappy coincidence, I’d just seen The China Syndrome, a movie starring Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, and Mike Douglas. The movie was pretty darn scary and drastic. What would happen in a total meltdown? Well, everything melts into a toxic kind of lava that releases all kinds of radioactive stuff into the atmosphere.

Now, something like The China Syndrome was happening just hours away from where I lived! For three nail-biting days, my friends and I wondered if the hydrogen bubble found inside would explode and release contaminants into the air. Before this accident and the movie, people thought nuclear power plants were a great idea to save energy. During those three days and afterward, no one seemed to support the idea anymore.  For years, no other nuclear power plants were built. That changed about 10 years ago. There is one in Tennessee now.

Before the week was over, we learned that the bubble wouldn’t cause an explosion and we wouldn’t get radiation poisoning.  Although people around TMI were exposed to some radioactive material in the air, the levels were very low. There were no deaths or injuries. As far as I know, there haven’t been clusters of cancer or other radiation-exposure illnesses.

Ending on a happier note, I submitted a flash memoir to a Writers Advice contest. I just heard back from them, and they requested a bio and an illustration for the story. I have no idea how I placed in it and won’t know anything until it’s announced.  I feel very happy and positive about it.

Courage Under Fire

 I really meant to read a less stressful book after the last one.  In fact, on a friend’s recommendation, I requested Homer’s Odyssey. Going to the library just to pick up one book is challenging for me. As I walk in, there are displays of books everywhere. I found four more I wanted and one of them was Courage Under Fire by Steven A. Sund.

 

What happened on January 6, 2021, is forever etched in my mind, just as are other traumatic dates. It was my husband’s birthday, and we were enjoying watching TV when suddenly the show was interrupted by coverage of the insurrection at the Capitol building. We watched with growing horror all afternoon and into the evening, wondering WHERE was the National Guard and why didn’t they show up until after the traitors departed? Last August, I read Representative Jamie Raskin’s book Unthinkable and experienced what it was like for the legislators, staff, and family members inside who were protected and safely evacuated by Capitol police.

 

Steven A. Sund was the Capitol Police chief that day. I wanted to read his book because I still had so many questions about what happened that day and wanted the viewpoint of the man in charge.  One of the first things I learned is how complicated security is within the Capitol. I would have thought that Sund would be in control of implementing all the plans and would have the authority to call in all the help he needed. But, no. In order to request the National Guard, he would have to get permission from the two sergeants at arms (one for the House, one for the Senate). And THEY have to go talk to their people (Speaker, Senate Majority Leader).

 

Based on reports Sund was getting from Intel across all the federal police sources, there was only a “remote” chance of violence because all six protest groups were supposed to stay in place. However, when they began advancing on the Capitol and becoming increasingly menacing and violent as they began fighting with the Capitol police guarding the outside perimeters, Sund called the sergeants at arms. The House Sergeant didn’t like “the optics” of having soldiers at the Capitol, but he’d go ask Speaker Pelosi and get back to Sund. The Senate Sergeant suggested that Sund call the Guard and see what they might have available.

 

The protest turned into a full scale coup attempt. No one got back to Sund about calling in the National Guard, and so he began calling other agencies with a police force: Supreme Court, FBI, Secret Service, and nearby police forces from Virginia and Maryland. Even New Jersey sent troopers to help at the Capitol, which was rapidly overrun by the insurrectionists.  Sund was in a near panic, watching his police force being attacked with all kinds of weapons and noxious sprays.

 

At about the time Capitol police within the building began escorting legislators, staff and family members to safety, Sund finally got permission to call in the National Guard. But they didn’t come. There were some units within sight of the Capitol, directing traffic, but they were not permitted to deploy to help the struggling officers.

 

Why? And this was my biggest question: why wasn’t the National Guard deployed earlier?

 

Sund explained how the Army was giving him the runaround about deploying soldiers to the Capitol even though the general Sund spoke to could see how dangerous the insurrectionists had become.  Sund does give a reason why the response was so horribly delayed, and it’ll raise the goosebumps in you as it did to me.  You’ll have to read the book to find out why and other hairy details unknown at the time to us viewers.

 

This is the scariest part: there was a massive intel communication failure before January 6^th. Over two years have gone by and not much has changed. Analysts and other intel agents haven’t been replaced; the procedures haven’t been changed. Steven Sund and the two sergeants at arms were both forced to resign before being fired. They were the sacrificial lambs and the world went on.

 

It could happen again. Without any changes, it will.