When I bought this suit, it was the year 2000. Many things were different then, including my waistline. The difference between then and now is not so profound as uncomfortable. I can barely fit into this suit. Wearing the silly thing has a strangling effect about the lower thorax. Never mind. In this way, I tell myself, I shall achieve dietary moderation. Which seems to be working so far, three hours into today’s discomfort. Surely I know what I’m doing.
And what am I doing? Well, I’m off to the annual fundraiser for San Francisco’s Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Eric Holder, attorney general under Obama, is tonight’s featured speaker. I am looking forward to the evening. Only thing, I am already looking forward to getting out of this suit. But then, I am also looking forward to getting out of the Trump Administration. Neither is easy. Both represent poor choices and the passage of time.
San Francisco experienced a mass shooting in a high-rise building in the 1990s, a time when such occurrences were not yet borderline routine. Those who perished included a pregnant woman. The gunman, an aggrieved litigant, had probably arrived at the wrong floor and at the wrong law firm. Being elsewhere in the building, his actual attorneys survived. The dire absurdity of the whole massacre beggars belief. But then, so does the national fascination with guns.
The Law Center sprang into existence shortly after the shootings at 101 California St. If there is a lesson here, it is simply this: don’t piss off lawyers. This organization has been a thorn in the side of the National Rifle Association for years. While gun restrictions fare poorly in areas such as the American South, they have done rather well elsewhere. California is a good example. So what, I say. The violent nation seems headed for trouble, doubtless armed trouble. How much can these San Francisco lawyers accomplish?
I will have a better idea tonight. Doubtless there will be a certain amount of cheerleading. That’s okay – up to a point. But fundraiser or not, I hope to hear some sober news. If nothing else, a sense of the challenges ahead. There are many. I live in a nation that has more guns than people. This is a mass social experiment that has never been tried before in the developed world, I believe. And there is little reason to think that this will work out well. Our armed and aggrieved citizenry are simply too keen on shooting it out.
As for the waistline, what are the appropriate expectations? Doubtless I put on some poundage during my recent trip to Britain and France. Can I lose it? Possibly. Partly. Entirely? Well, maybe not. And the same may hold true for the guns. Maybe this is a time of reduced expectations overall. Not no violent, but slightly less violence. Maybe that’s all a wise person can hope for. I don’t know. Hope springs infernal. I will turn up tonight, eat the usual banquet chicken and listen with relatively open ears.