Quote of the Day (Garry Wills, on the School Shootings That Make America ‘The Disgrace of Nations’)

“We are the disgrace of nations because we can’t stop killing our children—along, of course, with their teachers, relatives, and innocent bystanders. We don’t even seem to want to stop doing it, not effectively, at any rate. We say we should, but we don’t. We just can’t. We are worse than the drunk who says he should stop drinking but doesn’t. At least drinking is (or was) pleasant in its early stages. But how can killing be pleasant at first?”—Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills, “The Court Kills,” The New York Review of Books, Apr. 4, 2023

(Photo of Garry Wills by Lauren Gerson, taken on March 10, 2015 at the LBJ Presidential Library, where he was joining the Friends of the LBJ Library to discuss his book, The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis.)

Quote of the Day (Gabby Giffords, on the Orlando Shooting and the ‘New Normal’)

“Some will say that our nation must accept this as the new normal. Some will say that there is nothing we can do to make our country safer from gun violence. It’s not true. We cannot let armed ambushes become the new normal in our country. We have to do better than this. And we can. We have to do more to ensure hatred doesn’t find its evil voice in the crack of a gunshot. We are heartbroken that this attack allegedly targeted our country’s LGBTQ community as they celebrated Pride Month.”— Gabrielle Giffords (pictured) and husband Mark Kelly, on the Orlando mass shooting, quoted in “Statement by Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Captain Mark Kelly on the Tragic Mass Shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida,” http://americansforresponsiblesolutions.org, June 12, 2016