Martin Luther King was 39 years old when he was assassinated.
Bobby Kennedy was 42.
His brother, Jack, was 46.
Every once in a while I spend some time rewriting history, imagining if RFK had lived to run for President. I wonder if the momentum built up by his victory in California would have propelled him into the White House, his ruthlessness the perfect antidote to Richard Nixon's perfidy.
Would JFK have been able to pass the Civil Rights legislation that LBJ muscled through Congress? What would MLK's passion have achieved?
Forty-some years later, a bullet tore through my Congresswoman's brain. Gabby Giffords was 41.
It took ten more years to take a small but significant step in the right direction toward sensible gun ownership.
Last weekend, six months after my friend and 54 others were shot in Highland Park, the Illinois legislature passed a remarkably broad bill, covering almost everything its citizen/survivor sponsors desired.
Perhaps there is hope.
It's hard to understand why it takes so long.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it proves how out of touch our elected officials are.
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So many remarkable people gone so young. It is worth contemplating what they might have accomplished.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, every night on the local news we hear of someone killed by gun violence.