Kansas’ new ATF gun crime center is nothing to celebrate. It’s a tragedy we need it
My latest column for McClatchy.
My latest column for McClatchy, which appears in the Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle, concerns this week’s opening of a new “Nation Gun Crime Intelligence Center of Excellence” in Wichita, a hub for the ATF to help authorities nationwide to investigate all our many, many gun crimes.
There was a ribbon-cutting. There were smiles for the cameras. There were handshakes. There was applause.
All for a facility whose purpose is to be an after-the-fact defense mechanism against the blood-soaked violence that destroys lives and communities across this country every single day.
Maybe a ribbon-cutting wasn’t quite the right way to inaugurate Wichita’s new National Gun Crime Intelligence Center of Excellence. Something more apocalyptic would’ve been appropriate, maybe involving wailing, rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. Sackcloth and ashes perhaps. Penance for the violence we choose to accept, even as we witness — and become numb to — its devastating effects on a near-daily basis.
A bit angrier than usual. Please read the whole thing.
Might be time to invest in a recovery center for survivors and families of victims of gun violence. Maybe Kansas can earn that contract as well.
"of Excellence"...
Probably not appropriate, but I can't stop laughing at that part. I have a hard time imagining an actual corporation using such vacuous corporate speak.