By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania –Twenty years after the Columbine massacre and thousands of murders later, Isiaka Meite was shot to death in Southwest Philly Sunday night, June 16, and two days later a Trump appointee urged a “let ‘em eat cake”-type of solution for shooting rampages at synagogues.
While his family mourned the death of Meiti, in an unrelated context Elon Carr told an interviewer in Jerusalem, “We live in a time of danger. Any synagogue, every JCC, should have guards.” Presumably, the State Department’s envoy for anti-Semitism also would call for guards to protect open-air communal park celebrations such as the party where Meiti was gunned down.
Meite, the son of African immigrants, was the 151st homicide victim of the year in Philadelphia, one of five felled by gun violence throughout the city during Father’s Day weekend, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Amid 19 shooting incidents, another 23 were injured – five of them who attended a graduation party along with Meite at Finnegan Playground, in the opposite corner of the city from my neighborhood. The party celebrated the graduations of 10 young adults with the city’s West African community.
My neighborhood, known as the suburban-like Northeast, is home to a sizeable but dwindling Jewish population and was reliably safe years ago, but the number of homicides, store robberies and home invasions has steadily risen.
Many of us can identify with Meite’s ambitious nature. While waiting on restaurant tables, the 24-year-old Meite was pursuing his goal of making films. When I was his age, I was a newspaper reporter pursuing as one of my goals to expose Watergate-type scandals.
Nobody needs a Deep Throat-like source to figure out the scandal behind Meite’s death. It is too simple and heartbreaking: Criminals are allowed unlimited access to guns. Some have even borrowed them from their parents. If they cannot acquire them at home, they can easily cross city and state borders to find them.
The power to prevent their access to handguns and assault weapons has always been in the hands of Congress and the White House, and both have allowed this practice to persist. In my mind, that makes those anti-gun control senators and representatives, primarily Republicans, accomplices to the murders of Meite and the dozen victims at the Tree of Life and Chabad of Poway synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif., a San Diego suburb.
Congress’s latest lame response emerged on June 10 when the House of Representatives voted to raise annual funding to secure nonprofit facilities by $15 million, to $75 million, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. The next day, the House Appropriations Committee voted to increase the amount another $15 million.
Jewish organizations have benefited the most from the program, applying for grants to add barriers or install security systems at Jewish community centers, schools and synagogues, according to JTA. Non-Jewish institutions are also applying for the money.
“We are very grateful for the strong, bipartisan support…to keep our houses of worship and schools safe amid record increases in anti-Semitism and bigotry,” said Nathan Diament, the director of the Orthodox Union’s Washington office, as quoted by the JTA.
Are they safe? Are we only worried about houses of worship and schools? Would we be having this conversation now had Congress enacted strong gun control measures long ago? Possibly as far back as Columbine High School tragedy when 12 students and one teacher were felled.
With the House’s two actions, the members could end up hiking funds for security measures by 50 percent. It means that $60 million was insufficient to make these religious facilities safe. Will $90 million be enough? How much money must Congress authorize to secure nightclubs, colleges, public schools, shopping malls, and outdoor concert courtyards?
How will Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot keep her city safe? Prior to Lightfoot’s swearing-in on May 20, her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, was blamed by President Trump and Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor, for the staggering amount of homicides from gun violence. Both Lightfoot and Emanuel are Democrats.
Even before he was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, Trump told the Chicago Sun-Times that Emanuel should seek “federal help” to control crime, and after he was sworn Trump persisted in his refusal to sign meaningful gun control legislation. After Emanuel left office, Chicago police reported on June 1 that 81 illegal weapons were seized since the preceding evening and 18 people were arrested on gun-related charges following massive shooting sprees, according to the London-based Independent.
In the wake of Philly’s 28 shootings, Police Commissioner Richard Ross questioned if gunmen were carrying more illegal firearms since they believed they could avoid being held accountable, the Inquirer reported. He did not blame anyone in the legal system, but the police union has criticized District Attorney Larry Krasner’s policies in connection with the crime rate.
Whatever the failings of Emanuel or Krasner, what city official can control the flow of guns from outside their borders? Criminals can find guns in states with lax gun laws and transport them to Philadelphia, Chicago and other crime-ridden cities.
One would think that Trump had the right idea when he wrote at the end of 2016, ”Chicago murder rate is record setting – 4,331 shooting victims with 762 murders in 2016. If Mayor can’t do it he must ask for Federal help!” (from the Sun-Times).
Emanuel’s answer (through spokesman Adam Collins): “We agree the federal government has a strong role to play…by funding summer jobs and … programming for at-risk youth, by holding the criminals who break our gun laws accountable for their crimes, by passing meaningful gun laws, and by building on the partnerships our police have with federal law enforcement.”
Gun control is not likely to solve it all, but it could substantially reduce gun violence. Relatively speaking, there is light at the end of the tunnel. After so many years and homicides, Democrats have a more than reasonable chance of attaining enough power in the 2020 election to enact gun control legislation. They could win the presidency and a Senate majority while retaining their majority in the House. Plus, they must ensure that the Senate’s current filibuster rule does not block proposals for gun control.
All that is yet 1½ years away. How many more Americans must join Isiaka Meite in death until then?
*
Ticker is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer. He may be contacted via bruce.ticker@sdjewishworld.com