“Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years?”
That’s Samuel Alito, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, before voting to roll back New York State’s gun regulations.
“Speaking to the House committee, Dr. Guerrero described returning to the emergency room to horrifying sights: two children who he said had been ‘pulverized’ and ‘decapitated’ by bullets.”
That’s Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician in Uvalde, Texas, recounting to Congress what he saw in the ER after a mass murder shot up a class at Robb Elementary School.
Alito’s a monster.
And now Highland Park, Ill. And next (your city here).
I’m not letting this go.
Two days after Michael Louis shot to death Preston Phillips, Stephanie Husen, Amanda Glenn, and William Love and himself — and I still don’t know whether to include him in the murdered or keep him separate — in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I was at lunch with a friend in another part of town when Lt. Brandon Watkins walked in to the restaurant.
Watkins and I are acquaintances.
“We have a lunch every month or so,” he told me.
The we were fellow officers.
The hostess took him to a table at the far side of the restaurant. Another cop came in, then another, then another — eight in all. They were all armed — of course they were all armed.
There was no safer place in Tulsa at the moment.
Right?
Brandon and I had breakfast the following week.
“The other day, you and the seven cops. You all had guns, you’re all great shots.”
“I don’t know about that,” he says, laughing.
“Terrific. But you’re all sitting far away from the door. What happens if someone walked in with an automatic weapon and opened fire?”
“We’re all dead.”
That’s how breakfast started.
Brandon is head of Tulsa Police Department’s Homicide Division.
“You sure you don’t want something to eat?” I ask.
“No, just coffee. I’m on a diet.”
“You’re always on a diet. Last time we met, after the Trump rally in Tulsa, you were on a diet.”
“I lose the weight, then I put it right back on. This job isn’t good for my health. You get frustrated, angry, and then there’s a stale donut lying around or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.”
Brandon has a ketchup phobia.
“It’s weird. I shake. I have to push it away with a napkin or a stick. I’m talking to someone about it,” he said, smiling, rolling his eyes.
“Is it the color — red ketchup, red blood? Surely your therapist —.”
“No. Blood I can do. I work in murder.”
Tulsa is the 14th deadliest city in the nation, according to World Population Review.
“We are not the people that Hollywood wants us to believe we are,” he tells me. “It’s hard to shoot someone who is shooting back at you. The body doesn’t react the way you think. It panics. There’s adrenaline, fear, you keep adjusting your focus. It’s why people pee their pants when they’re scared. Those jackoffs in Walmart with their weapons are convinced they will act a certain way. But they won’t. You don’t shoot someone, make a pithy comment, and then walk away unaffected. That’s not how it works.”
“So if you guys couldn’t have stopped an attack at lunch, when there’s eight of you … with guns, what chance does a second grade teacher —”
“People who say that don’t know what they’re talking about. If there was someone behind you right now and he had a gun and was about to shoot, I would have to worry about shooting you to get to him. I would move to my left or right and by then, he’s already fired.”
I looked behind me.
“You always worry about shooting the wrong person. Teachers would have to worry about shooting the wrong people.”
He’s talking about children. Your children.
“The vast majority of responsible gun owners in this country are in favor of background checks, licensing and training, but the extremists control the conversation because — who knows? — liberals don’t know that AR doesn’t mean automatic rifle, as if that’s important.”
[It’s ArmaLite Rifle — now go win an argument]
“Liberals appeal to logic, intelligence. They can show you the statistics that prove you’re not safer with guns. They would talk about Switzerland, Sweden, where they have plenty of guns but where people are trained. But conservatives appeal to emotion — the good guy stopping the bad guy. The cogent logical arguments feel flat.”
“Why don’t cops make that clearer? Why aren’t you out front on this issue?”
“We’re told to stay away from political stances.”
He talked of the self-proclaimed Second Amendment Auditors who try to “bait” cops. They prance around police stations, cell phones recording, trying to get cops to say or do something they claim infringes on their rights to possess guns.
“They’re horses’ asses — the most obnoxious people on earth.”
“What did the cops prevent from happening that day in Tulsa?”
“Maybe the guy killed himself earlier than he would have because he knew we were approaching, but I don’t know. If we had cops at the door that day, there’s nothing we could have done to stop him from entering the facility.”
“What?”
“In Oklahoma, you’re allowed to walk around with an AR-15.”
“Jesus, that’s right!”
My stepson works at the bagel place where we were having breakfast. He was standing behind the register.
“So, if someone came in right now with an AR-15 —“
“He’s legally allowed to do so.”
“But what if someone else in the restaurant, someone with an AR-15 — if that guy, because he feels threatened or wants to play Rambo, you, me, my stepson, and whoever is likely killed because two guys with automatic weapons at a bagel place … ?”
“Great society we’ve crafted, huh?”
Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. In addition to “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Road Comic,” “Four Days and a Year Later” and “The Joke Was On Me,” his first novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages,” a book about the worst love story ever, was published by Balkan Press in February. See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.
From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2022
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