Leah and I had a great Fourth of July weekend with Katy, Brad, Alaina, Nolan and Kaylen. It included two parades, fireworks at Bay Harbor, putt-putt golf, swimming at the Country Club of Boyne pool, three trips to Kilwins, flank steak and all the fixings on the grill, dinner with our neighbors Kathy and Mike Snyder at the Back Lot with food-trucks, and an 18-hole round of golf at Crooked Tree with Alaina, Nolan, Brad and me. Alaina and I took on Brad and Nolan in an alternate-shot and scramble. Both matches came down to the last hole. It was a great way to golf with the kids.
The highlight was the walking back to the car after watching the fireworks at Bay Harbor. One of the homes near the golf course, set off set off a whole bunch of high-flying fireworks just as we were walking by. The fireworks seemed to be going off directly above our heads. The kids were excited and afraid at the same time as we walked under a very loud light show.
Only in America does the following occur on the day we celebrate our independence. I will not apologize for sharing this photo from the Chicago Sun Times. I hope I upset everyone so much they decide to do something.
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| 2022 date | City | State | Dead | Injured | Total | Description |
| July 4 | Minneapolis (3) | Minnesota | 0 | 8 | 8 | During Independence Day celebrations at Boom Island Park, a shooting left eight injured.[20] |
| July 4 | Denver (3) | Colorado | 1 | 3 | 4 | A shooting in the College View neighborhood left one dead and three others injured.[21] |
| July 4 | New York City (8) | New York | 0 | 4 | 4 | Four adults were wounded at a cookout at a home in Rochdale Village, Queens after an unidentified shooter arrived and opened fire. They fled before police arrived.[22] |
| July 4 | Kenosha (2) | Wisconsin | 1 | 4 | 5 | Five people were shot, one fatally, at a home in the central part of the city.[23] |
| July 4 | Boston | Massachusetts | 0 | 4 | 4 | Four people were shot at an intersection in the Dorchester neighborhood.[24] |
| July 4 | Sacramento (3) | California | 1 | 4 | 5 | A shooting outside a nightclub killed one and injured four.[25] |
| July 4 | Highland Park | Illinois | 7 | 25[n 2] | 32 | 2022 Highland Park parade shooting: Seven people were killed and twenty-five others were wounded after a person opened fire from a rooftop on people attending an Independence Day parade. Eleven others were injured fleeing the scene[26] |
| July 4 | Kansas City | Missouri | 0 | 4 | 4 | Officers responding to reports of car break-ins heard gunshots, then found four people shot in the downtown area.[27] |
| July 4 | Richmond | Virginia | 0 | 6 | 6 | Six people were shot during the early morning outside an internet cafe in the Jackson Ward neighborhood.[28] |
| July 4 | Chicago (20) | Illinois | 0 | 5 | 5 | Shortly after midnight, five people, including a teenager, were shot. |
As you look over the above list, I want to share excerpts from an editorial written by Patti Davis, daughter of former President Ronald Reagan.
Forty-one years ago, on a cold, drizzly day in Washington, four people were shot by a young man who had concealed a gun in his jacket. This was long before mass shootings became a frequent reality of our lives. It was long before semiautomatic weapons became commonplace. There were many “good people with guns” there that day. It made no difference. Four men were shot in a matter of seconds. I am the daughter of one of those men, Ronald Reagan, who came incredibly close to losing his life because the bullets John Hinckley loaded into his gun were devastator bullets, meant to fragment. Meant to kill more efficiently. One of those bullets blew apart James Brady’s head; he was never the same.
The gun used was a Röhm RG-14 revolver. It fit neatly into a jacket pocket. In the decades since that day, I have lived with a fear of guns, especially concealed guns. Now that fear has expanded to assassins in tactical gear with AR-15-style rifles storming grocery stores, schools, churches, theaters — anyplace, really — and mowing down scores of people in minutes. It is no comfort that my fear is shared by so many Americans. In fact, that adds another dimension. We are, increasingly, a country gripped by fear: It weakens us, gnaws at our confidence, makes us more vulnerable than resolute.
When the Supreme Court ruled recently that Americans have a right to carry a concealed handgun in public, something froze in me. It won’t just be the sketchy-looking guy with a backpack who sets off alarm bells, or the person wearing a big jacket on a blazing hot day. It might also be the nondescript person who barely gets noticed, who suddenly reaches into his pocket for a gun. Someone like John Hinckley, who blended in until he didn’t.
It was my father who taught me to have a healthy fear of guns. I grew up in the 1950s, when television staples were Westerns like “Gunsmoke” and “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.” The men had guns, someone was always getting shot, and they would clutch their wounds and keep on fighting. My father was determined to educate me about certain realities compared with what we were watching. Every time, he would say things like: If that man were really shot in the shoulder at that range, half his arm would be blown off. Or: He was just shot in the thigh. He would not be limping along. He’d be bleeding out. I learned about the femoral artery at a ridiculously young age.
You are never the same after gun violence has touched your life. From the deepest wounds of those who have lost children, loved ones, friends — most recently in Uvalde and Buffalo — to the survivors, like the kids from Parkland whose lives have been changed forever, lives are never the same. You wonder when it will happen again; there is a part of you that’s always watchful, always suspicious of strangers. You get jumpy when someone reaches into a backpack. Increasingly, because shootings have become so common in America, almost all people carry around that fear, even if their own life hasn’t (yet) been touched by gun violence.
Every day in my blog, I ask the question, What are you doing to stop the violence? Initially I put the word “gun” in front of violence. After getting input from my friend Larry Ward, I saw the wisdom in focusing on all violence not just gun violence. As of today, I am changing my question to: What are you doing to stop the violence and mass killings?
Feel free to share my blog.
Elections Matter. Pray for peace and tolerance. What are you doing to stop the violence and mass killings?
Orchid of the Day: The first responders and law officers who put themselves in harms way while the attending to the victims of the Highland Park, Illinois shooting victims.
Onion of the Day: To everyone who does not see the relationship of access semi-automatic guns with high-capacity magazines to mass shootings.
Quote of the Day: “C-Mo, would you hit the cutoff just one-time!” Craig Monroe in tonight’s broadcast of the Tiger game telling fans what former Tiger manager Jim Leyland used to say to him when he missed the cutoff man on his throws to home. This was a result of Victor Reyes missing the cutoff and allowing the Guardian runner to advance to second and put himself into scoring position.
Question of the Day: What is it going to take to say enough is enough?
Video/Image of the Day: