In my Impromptus column today, there are some very touchy subjects: gun violence, and how to deal with it; Mike Pence and the GOP; Bill Buckley and the neoconservatives; Elon Musk and X. Are there any non-touchy subjects? Well, baseball, but that can be plenty touchy.
Let’s have a sampling of reader mail — beginning with,
You wrote: “I hope it’s not unseemly to say that I wish there had been a gun behind the bar.”
I humbly submit you literally don’t know what you’re talking about. You produced nearly verbatim the gunmakers’ marketing strategy, like it was 1959 and you were talking about how good it feels to smoke Virginia tobacco.
They sell guns to people to protect against the guns they’ve already sold.
Another reader:
One of the clichés among gun owners has been the line “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.”
A reader writes,
Mr. Nordlinger,
I have been reading you with interest on Ukraine. More and more, I am coming around to the thought that Ukraine and now Israel are fronts in a global war against the democratic world. . . .
My son is a tank-platoon commander, deployed to Europe. He had the opportunity to conduct training on his vehicles with a NATO ally, but a group of Ukrainian soldiers nearby asked for a show-and-tell session.
Afterwards, a Ukrainian soldier removed his flag patch and handed it to my son. When my son wanted to trade back a patch of his own, the Ukrainian refused. His rough translation was that he wanted an American officer to know that no matter what, the Ukrainians appreciated the support they have, and don’t want to be forgotten.
My son was very touched.
Our correspondent shares a photo:
Another reader writes,
Hi, Jay,
I’ve been a very occasional correspondent of yours over the years. . . . At 58, I am shocked by the Republican Party. I formed my views during the Reagan years and just don’t recognize the party anymore.
I don’t understand how there are Republicans who don’t support Ukraine. Who don’t see how important it is that Russia be stopped. I can’t comprehend the apologists for Putin.
I can’t comprehend the whole Trump thing. . . . What happened? . . .
I’m pro-life. I’m fiscally conservative — and even more conservative from a foreign-policy perspective. I don’t know how to define myself anymore. I don’t know where I belong!
Am I just going through my grump-old-guy phase?
There are many things to say in response — for paragraphs and paragraphs, and pages and pages, and books and books. But one thing is: We are individuals. Which is great. And which can be very unsettling — for man is, at one level, a herd animal, or tribal animal.
To be continued (forever?).