Is it All About Having the Biggest Gun?

Today is one of those days on which history has designed some ironic coincidences. In Japan it is the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, based on our logic that it would take two such bombings to convince Japan to sue for peace. On our own soil it is the first anniversary to the death of Michael Brown by police shooting, a memorial occasion that was interrupted by the firing of six more shots, whose origins have yet to be determined. If that were not enough to remind us that the juggernaut keeps rolling, last night gunfire broke out at a home in Harris County in Texas; and, by the time the shooting had stopped, six children and two adults were dead. Such is the legacy of a country that seems to believe that conflict can only be resolved though violent deaths.