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23
Jun
2019
It had to happen, I suppose. Around two million fans of the Toronto Raptors basketball team packed the city’s downtown streets for a victory celebration.
Then someone took a gun into the crowd. And started shooting.
Four people sustained wounds. Three people were arrested; two firearms seized.
As I write this column, three suspects have been identified; a fourth is being hunted. So far, no one has offered a motive for the shooting.
You’re expecting another rant about guns and gun control. Not this time – because I think there’s a bigger issue involved.
In case there’s any doubt, I do oppose guns. I did have a BB gun as a teenager. I haven’t owned a gun since; we didn’t let our children play with guns.
But the real problem is not guns. It’s our ever-growing desire to distance ourselves from the effects of our actions.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: email, war, Toronto, weapons, Senate
11
Nov
2018
Today is Remembrance Day. And it’s a special Remembrance Day -- the Armistice that ended the War to End All Wars came into effect exactly 100 years ago. At 11:00 a.m. on the 11thday of the 11thmonth of 1918 the guns fell silent.
If only we could say that they had stayed silent.
They haven’t. They’ve gotten more lethal. With the Second World War. Then with the Korean War and the Vietnam War, both of which I think of as outbreaks of the first World Civil War, with an incessant parade of people taking up arms against their own people. In Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, in Kashmir, in Sudan…
And then there are the eruptions where outside forces get involved in local conflicts: Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen…
To mark this special anniversary, the Canadian Legion erected 240 crosses in Kelowna’s City Park -- one cross for each Canadian soldier from this area who died in the two World Wars.
I applaud their effort. But I think by focussing on the fallen, we miss something important.
Tags: PTSD, Remembrance Day, armistice, war