Today, August 6th, is the day that Hiroshima, Japan was attacked by the first atomic bomb unleased by the United States, to end the Second World War, followed by a second atomic bomb on August 9 on Nagasaki, Japan.
It is important to commemorate this event 67 years ago, two thirds of a century ago, without criticizing what President Harry Truman did, as in wartime one must do many things that may be seen as objectionable, but necessary to end the conflict. Certainly, many American lives, British and other allied lives, and even Japanese lives were saved. But we should still acknowledge the loss of life, no matter what.
But today is also a day to reflect on domestic violence caused by lack of any real regulation of guns in American society. We are reminded of this just weeks after the Aurora, Colorado movie theatre massacre, with the killing of six members of a Sikh temple outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Sunday by a neo Nazi named Wade Michael Page, who had served in the military, and also engaged in the subspecialty in music known as Hate Rock, a genre that exploits and glorifies violence against any ethnic or religious minority that does not fit the description of white supremacy.
When one realized that it is expected, by statistics, that 48,000 Americans will be killed by guns in the next Presidential term, as compared to the approximate 3,000 killed on September 11 in New York City, Washington, DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, how can one react other than in mourning and disbelief?
We have an insidious disease in America–gun worship–which is causing the death in four years of nearly the entire loss in the Vietnam War, more than the Korean War, more than the Spanish American War, more than the Mexican War, more than the War of 1812, more than the American Revolution, and of course, more than the losses in the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War!
Somehow, something must be done to stop the blood letting in America, and to justify it on “the right to bear arms”!