Mondays with Mike: Balancing freedoms

We live about three blocks from the ginormous Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue—the one associated with the 1968 Democratic Convention. Well, things are a lot more peaceful there these days, and we go there to work out—the health club sells memberships. A fair number of people from our neighborhood are also members.

Beth swims there about every other day. She was there Thursday and reported that security was ultra-tight. As in, hotel guests couldn’t use the pool unless they’d called in advance and the staff confirmed that they were, in fact, a hotel guest.

Why? Lollapalooza. In an effort to avoid the slaughter that happened in Las Vegas in 2017, everything remotely near the annual festival in Grant Park is locked down. As in mailboxes have been sealed shut and the like. There are rumors that snipers are on duty, operating on hotel rooftops. Usually, I’d take that kind of thing as urban mythology, but having been here for the NATO summit, and witnessed the security measures, I tend to believe it.

It’s Sunday as I write this, and so far, Lollapalooza-goers have not been a target, thankfully. Wal-Mart customers in El Paso, Texas and bar patrons in Dayton, Ohio didn’t fare as well.

Americans have lost a lot of freedom. We have to go through magnetometers at sporting events and even at free concerts in the park. We have to register to swim in a hotel pool. And on and on.

All to appease gun fetishists who are a distinct minority, even among NRA members. Several common sense measures like universal background checks have broad support among Americans. Nothing can guarantee to stop these tragedies, but evidence suggests basic safeguards will make them less frequent. And the right measures will make them less deadly.

We get stuck on fatality counts. The fatalities are tragic. But the injured live on, often severely impaired. Survivors live with physical disabilities and PTSD, and their families will never be the same either. (This report from the Center for Investigative Reporting covers the lasting damage from these events.)

I refuse to get used to this. So I encourage you to join me and continue to press your lawmakers and do whatever you can to move us toward sanity. If you’re an NRA member, speak up and push for leadership changes.

Because what’s at stake is our inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.