The weirdest/eeriest thing just happened. I was having a very peaceful, restful 4th of July holiday Monday today. I was just making some tea. While waiting for the water to boil, I was putting some clean dishes and utensils away in the kitchen, and thinking about how I was going to go into another room and turn the TV on once I got my tea. All of a sudden, I got a feeling. And I said out loud to my cat, Kioko, "I have this feeling there's been another mass shooting." I had a strong feeling that, when I turned on the TV, there would be some sort of horrible news, and furthermore, it would be a mass shooting.
Now, one could argue that this truly is "an INFJ thing". I'm an INFJ and we do tend to have such strong intuition that it can border on, and, in some cases, at some times, even BE to the level of what some call "ESP" or extra sensory perception, and I've experienced this in the past: precognition. I just experienced it again. Because I just turned on the TV and: at least 6 killed, 31 injured in yet another mass shooting carried out with what should be, and is in other countries, a weapon of war that is not accessible to civilians. But in America, where we seem to value being the wild, wild west above almost all else, we are "free" to carry around weapons that have no other purpose at all except to kill the maximum number of people in the minimum number of moments. So one really doesn't have to be an INFJ to think "I have a feeling there was another mass shooting", turn on the TV, and see that it's true.
Friends, I love my country, America, very dearly. I'm patriotic. For all her faults, she's got so much that is very, very special in very, very awesomely good ways about her. But in this way--this way of having more and more and more and more mass shootings, massacres--we are "special" in a very, very terrible way. And we don't have to be.
This is the 4th of July. A day to celebrate all that is good about America. A day to celebrate our Independence and that we exist. When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, someone called out an eager question to him: “What have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Ben Franklin responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
A republic, if you can keep it. Already a phrase I've been reflecting on so much, in the wake of 45's reign of terror. The republic held, but in some ways, barely, and it was and remains a close call. Our very foundations were shaken, and some cracks happened and/or were exposed. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of shoring up and rebuilding and we have also reached a moment of reckoning in our country about a lot of our history that isn't so star-spangled, and that is ugly, and that was wrong. Yet there is so much beautiful and to cherish and to fight for--to shore up, to build up, to fix where needed and to lovingly preserve and/or restore where needed. So I was, in the midst of all that is wrong, also celebrating the 4th in my heart, mind and imagination--wherever one's ideals live--as always.
But turning on the TV and seeing that six worlds just ended and 31 more are shattered and imperiled, and all because we think "freedom" includes wielding weapons of mass murder, makes me, and this day for me in 2022, indescribably sad. How many times can I and others say: BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION FROM CIVILIAN HANDS?
Freedom is the freedom to go to church, synagogue, mosque, the grocery store, work, your elementary school, or a 4th of July parade without the very real fear of being gunned down in a massacre. This is the wild, wild west on steroids. This is not what our, or any, country should stand for. We should reflect on this, this 4th of July, as six worlds just ended and 31 more might from one massacre, and then we should do a lot more than reflect on every day after this 4th of July until we get a full, federal assault weapons (and ammo) ban.
Another thing about us INFJs is that we are very idealistic. This--an assault weapons ban--is considered a pie in the sky ideal. But is it? How pathological is a society in which just being able to leave the house without being gunned down is considered a pie in the sky ideal? And how pathological is a society in which the "freedom" to own a weapon of war, of mass murder, that can kill hundreds of people in moments, is somehow considered a "right"? Guess what, it is not mentioned in the constitution. So let's sic Clarence Thomas on this one, since he's very big on anything not explicitly mentioned in the constitution: there is ZERO right to carry military assault weapons of war, let him write a draft opinion on THAT. And then, my Democratic President and Congress, LET'S ENACT A NEW LAW BANNING ASSAULT RIFLES FROM CIVILIAN HANDS, so that we can celebrate our independence with a parade and not fear being gunned down in the process.
