PUTNEY — Today, I was out walking on a dirt road in our area with a friend, when an earsplitting gunshot shocked us both. Our first reaction was total fear: we never saw the shooter, and I think we both felt far more afraid after the most recent spate of gun-related killings in this country than we would have felt a even a few weeks ago.
Many of us feel like we are living in a shooting gallery in this country, that a small but significant percentage of Americans seem to feel that the first reaction to any problem is to shoot.
From the Orlando massacre, to the most recent video-broadcast murders of black men, to the killing of the police in Dallas - not to mention the thousands of shooting incidents involving one, two, or 20 deaths which seem to be the background of life in the United States now - we are living in a singular country.
The United States is the only country in the industrialized world to have essentially no restriction on gun ownership, carrying, or use. Having just returned from England and Iceland, I think I got the same questions so many other Americans are asked when traveling abroad at this time: Why do we allow people to own semi-automatic weapons? Why do so many people use guns here? Is anyone working to stop the killings?
In our discussion after the gunshots today, my friend and I, who are both white, discussed how much more fear we would feel if we were Black in America right now - and probably forever in the history of this country.
Since slavery, when a black person could be beaten or killed with impunity, through periods of legal lynchings, to now, when black folks can be killed by authorities who will rarely or ever face consequences, the toll on people must be great. We place a huge and unfair burden on black families, who might feel that every time their teenage or young adult children leave the house it may be the last time.
Since the Black Lives Matter campaign began, I and many other white supporters of racial justice have felt compelled to speak out and be heard.
We will continue to speak up until we live in a country where Black lives are valued and where we are all safe from the gun violence plaguing every state and city in our country.