Open Season

English: Downtown San Bernardino (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So here we are again.  At the start of the holiday season, people are shopping at the mall or online and celebrating with friends and loved ones.  This year, the one thing people would dearly love to have that doesn't have a "Star Wars" tie-in is this:  Relief from getting caught in the crossfire from those with guns and agendas, or having to watch it every time they turn on the TV.

• Fourteen killed at a center for developmentally-challenged adults in San Bernardino, California.
• Three are killed when a lone gunman opens fire on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
• One hundred thirty died in attacks on several different Paris venues.  The finger is pointed at Islamic State.
• Four are charged with the shooting of five Black Lives Matter demonstrators (none seriously) outside a Minneapolis police station, where they have been protesting the death of a young African American man allegedly at the hands of a white police officer.

You know where all this leads, don't you?  Hysteria, panic, calls to close the borders, extra groping at the airport, etc.  And that just comes from the Republican presidential candidates.  The rest of us take to social media expressing our anger and sorrow, which makes reading the comments in Facebook and Twitter such a pleasant experience if you're a masochist.

The massacre in Paris hasn't helped the plight of those Syrians who are fleeing their country's ruinous civil war.  At least ten thousand of them are slated to enter the United States in the next couple of years, but only after they've gone through rigorous background checks.

Some governors, in a show of bravado, have pledged not to let the migrants into their states out of concern for public safety.  Though they can't legally do that, the (mostly GOP) governors do have a point.  Even though the vast majority of Syrians might pass through the stringent checks with flying colors, there's always the possibility that one or two of them might game the system and sneak in to commit jihad on American soil.  Is that really worth punishing the 99 percent of Syrians who aren't card-carrying members of the Islamic State, and who simply want a better chance at life?

Besides, foreigners with terrorist connections weren't responsible for the Thanksgiving-weekend carnage in Colorado.  What is clear is that, in the more than four decades since the Supreme Court decided on Roe v. Wade, we're still arguing over abortion rights.  Only now, it has gotten deadlier with restrictions on those rights in some states and doctors getting death threats for doing their jobs.

Racist, trigger-happy cops deserve our scorn for the mistrust African Americans have for police departments these days.  But when the victim allegedly had a history of domestic abuse, interfered with paramedics who tried to help his girlfriend, and a dispute rises over whether or not he was handcuffed at the time he was shot, you really have to wonder.

President Barack Obama, in the final year or so of his White House residency, can only shrug his shoulders and offer condolences after events like these.  Nothing the President has said or done has caused Congress to pass meaningful legislation on immigration reform, climate change, gun control or civil rights.  Instead, he will likely make another sobering speech about the events in San Bernardino while reassuring Americans that there are no credible terrorist threats during the holiday season.

Meanwhile, Open Season continues.  Happy Holidays, America.