What's the Diehl?

A local nonprofit organization hired me earlier this year to serve as its development director. I was interviewed by two women – the executive director and associate director – and received a call later that day asking if I could come back in the next day to discuss salary and start date. After working for myself for a long time – and juggling the need to secure clients with the need to do work for said clients – it was a genuine relief to land a “regular” job. Although I’m experienced and capable, it’s been challenging in recent years to compete with younger, better-educated, willing-to-work-for-less individuals for the finite number of jobs in my area. So Anita and I were very, very happy.

Two days after I started I was summoned into an emergency staff meeting and told along with my new colleagues that our executive director – one of the two who had hired me – was no longer employed by the agency for reasons that I won’t reiterate here but weren’t good.

The next four months were more than a little challenging. The associate director who co-hired me became interim director but didn’t have the time or desire to make major decisions or commitments; she was too busy trying to keep the doors open and keep the place from imploding. The disengaged, dysfunctional board of directors didn’t help much. It wasn’t easy to raise money for an organization that was drifting rather than plowing full speed ahead. I did what I thought I should do, juggling multiple balls in the air and doing what I could to position us for greater efficiency, if not success, once the new leader was identified. I even helped with the search process and helped lure the candidate who ultimately snagged the job.

I was fired shortly after she started. No two weeks notice. No severance. Not even a “thanks anyway” as I recall. Done. Five or six of us were let go unexpectedly that day and I’m told a few others were set adrift in the days that followed.

I knew the organization was financially insolvent. I knew I wasn’t bringing in the kind of cash we needed – yet – and the board probably directed my new boss to make hard decisions and take drastic measures to avoid shuttering the doors. So I tried not to take things personally and immediately fired up the Employment Search Machine again – it had barely cooled – and assured Anita that this was just a small setback. I promised her that we’d be able to keep the new van we had just purchased and that I’d land on my feet somewhere real soon.

Weeks later, I’m still looking – when I’m not taking calls from banks and creditors demanding payment and threatening to make things worse.

I’m lucky Anita’s so loyal. She’s put up with a lot from me over the years, I must admit, and a lesser person would have thrown in the towel long ago. Not my partner. She’s committed to the relationship and she’s probably the most loyal, good-hearted person I’ve met in 52 years on Planet Earth. Even she has her breaking point, though, and she deserves way more than the world, and I, have given her thus far.

I wish my last employer knew about loyalty. I was compensated every two weeks while I was there, of course, but I wish my commitment would have worked in my favor when it came time to decide who would get the axe. (They filled a new position a few weeks later so there must have been a few dollars stashed away somewhere.)

I’ve tried to be loyal to friends, family and employers in the past. My record isn’t spotless but I can sleep at night. (Actually I can’t right now, but you know what I mean.) I stayed at one job for eight years and another for over 10. I enjoy the unwavering loyalty on which we can count from our parents if we’re lucky. And nothing’s more loyal than my two Maltese pups. So I still know what loyalty is.

It seems, however, like loyalty as a concept is going the way of customer service and sense of community these days – that is, it’s disappearing. Too many politicians are betraying their constituents. Too many cops are persecuting and not protecting. Too many men think it’s okay to punch their partner’s lights out when the elevator doors close. In today’s “I don’t like what you posted so I’m unfriending you” culture, too many brands and relationships are discarded like used Kleenex and too many employers are less reliable, more demanding and laser-focused on just the bottom line.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope it’s just cynicism. And I hope there’s someone out there who values loyalty enough to consider my skills and abilities and put me on their payroll. I bet many of the 9.6 million other jobless Americans out there would love to prove their loyalty to an employer too.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor.

“It’s a myth that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. If more guns in the hands of more people stopped gun crime, we would be the safest country in the developed world. Instead, our gun murder rate is the highest in the developed world.”

~ Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America

“There’s no conceivable reason to own an AR-15, a pump action shotgun, armor-piercing bullets or a high-capacity magazine. Firing a semi-auto at a piece of cardboard is no more ‘sport’ than using a bazooka to play pool is ‘leisure.’ It simply appeals to the fraction of the population who dream of re-enacting Scarface’s last stand every time they get a letter from the IRS.”

~ Morris M, Listverse.com

“A broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.”

~ Harvard School of Public Health

“Every day, 33 Americans are murdered with guns. Seven of them are children.”

~ Everytown for Gun Safety

I now have a good reason to avoid Kroger’s like Mormons avoid casinos: according to an e-mail alert I received yesterday, the supermarket chain is apparently fine with its customers strolling the aisles with TEC-9’s and AK-47’s slung over their shoulders.

The country’s largest full-service grocery retailer – it operates 2,642 properties in 34 states, has 375,000 employees and recorded $98.4 billion in annual sales last year– has responded to the more than 68,000 people who’ve encouraged it to adopt gun sense policies by sticking its corporate fingers in its ears. “Millions of customers are present in our busy grocery stores every day and we don’t want to put our associates in a position of having to confront a customer who is legally carrying a gun,” said company spokesman Keith Dailey. “We know that our customers are passionate on both sides of this issue and we trust them to be responsible in our stores.”

So Kroger’s has no plans to address the issue because the company’s afraid of confrontation. No need to make space on the mantel for that Profile in Courage award, guys.

I guess it’s understandable that they don’t want to change their gun policy because it would risk alienating the pro-gun portion of their customer base. But you can’t claim to be committed to a "safe and secure workplace and shopping environment," as Kroger’s does, while at the same time allowing – and in a sense, encouraging – gun-toting troglodytes to brandish their high-powered weaponry in the potato chip aisle.

Businesses exist to sell products and services and not to weigh in on the issues of the day. I get that. But I didn’t pick this fight. If Kroger’s is frustrated, corporate execs should blame the loons and yahoos who decide to head to their stores and flaunt their “Second Amendment rights” and maybe make it on the teevee news that night, not the responsible parents and families who just want to be able to restock their cupboards without worry and discomfort.

Why does someone’s right to terrorize his fellow citizens in response to his own feelings of rage and powerlessness trump the right of people like me to learn, shop, work, travel and entertain ourselves free from intimidation and fear? Why do gun rights advocates think referencing Adolph Hitler and the president’s armed security detail is all they need to do to justify their position?

It’s interesting that the few pro-gun people I know – intelligent, discerning, responsible individuals – can’t tell me what’s wrong with closing loopholes that allow dangerous people to buy guns without background checks, reinstating the assault weapons ban, educating parents about responsible gun ownership and safe gun storage, or limiting the availability of high-capacity magazines like those used in Aurora and Tucson. And when I point out that an armed society is actually not a safer society – one study crunched the numbers and found that successful interventions by armed civilians had occurred in only 1.6 percent of all mass shootings since 1980 – my discussion partners are as quiet as an unprepared student during an oral exam.

Gun lovers are everywhere. At a wedding recently, I was surprised to learn that my brother-in-law – a very likable, responsible fellow – owns and loves guns. He told me that when he’s feeling depressed or has had a bad day, a trip to the firing range with one of his carefully-stored firearms is just what the doctor ordered. I made a mental note to refrain from getting drunk with the guy and asking to see the inside of his safe. (Between 2005 and 2010, almost 3,800 people in the U.S. died from unintentional shootings.) I also vowed silently to remind my kids that if they see a gun at a relative’s house, even if it belongs to a super-cool uncle who’s fun to be with and gives great birthday gifts, they need to run the other way and not look back.

The assertion that gun control is dumb because criminals don’t follow laws anyway is juvenile. Lots of killers, rapists, pedophiles, robbers and drunk drivers don’t follow laws prohibiting murder, rape, possession of kiddy porn, theft or driving while impaired but that doesn’t mean we should get rid of any of those laws. just because a bad guy doesn’t obey one law doesn’t mean he doesn’t obey any of ‘em. And there are dozens of empirical studies showing that stricter gun control laws in the United States do in fact lower the rate of gun deaths.

I was chatting about gun violence with a fellow parent at football practice the other night. She knew Richard Pruitt, a 17-year-old boy who died this week after being shot in the head in Lansing – one of eight local shootings in seven days starting on August 14. “It could have been one of our sons,” I muttered as a bunch of 13- and 14-year-olds threw spirals and charged into blocking bags a few feet away. Then I realized he was.

An estimated 44 million people in the U.S. own approximately 192 million guns. Only a fool would want to try to completely ban them. But polls and surveys show that respondents are largely pro-gun control – it’s our Jello-spined politicians who aren’t. Clearly they’ve been bought by the National Rifle Association just like products for sale on Kroger’s shelves. And we can’t expect corporate America to do the right thing unless their bottom lines are at stake. Target and Starbucks both responded to public pressure by asking patrons to refrain from bringing guns into their stores. Hopefully, Kroger’s will hear from enough of us, come to its senses and follow suit.

The Kroger Co.

1014 Vine Street

Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-1100

1-800-576-4377

keith.dailey@kroger.com

P.S. A regular commenter in Facebook known as "Whimsy Wise" in Dillon, Montana, shared the following compelling post in response to this piece (and authorized me to reprint it here):

Excellent as usual, Patrick. This should be a common sense issue. It's not. For the record, if I'm in a store, church, library, etc., and some open carry idiot wants to parade past while armed, I'm out of there. There is nothing I need badly enough in any of those locations to risk my personal safety for.

As for the legality of firearms and “when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns” thinking, I have close up and personal knowledge of what a crock this is. Four and a half years ago, my 29 year-old son-in-law was murdered by a thief who broke into the home he shared with my daughter and their two small children.

The perpetrator's trial began June 9th of this year and ended July 3rd. He sat in a pre-trial facility all that time because he had no defense, until a stand your ground law was passed in that state in Sept of 2013. Once that law was passed, he was very comfortable with the Zimmerman line of BS of, “at that very moment I was afraid for my life.” Like Zimmerman, he was the obvious aggressor and like Trayvon Martin, my son-in-law was made out to be the bad guy.

For a solid month, my daughter and I sat and listened to the defense attempt to lay waste to Edwing’s character. Was it really necessary to the defense to announce that when Edwing was a junior in high school he got an in school suspension for having a joint? How was this remotely relevant?

Then we got to see the evidence against the defendant, starting with the medical examiner’s report. Along with the verbal testimony there was a power point presentation of the autopsy findings. We saw Edwing’s face, complete with powder burns from a 9 millimeter semiautomatic, indicating that the first shot occurred from 2 to 24 inches away. The bullet entered under his left eye and exited through his right cheek. The second shot most likely occurred at the same range but without powder burns due to clothing. That shot entered his left side went through the lung, heart, and second lung, exiting his right side. His heart had been removed and photographed, showing entrance and exit wounds.

We also got to see the small arsenal confiscated from the shooters lodgings when he was arrested. There was a total of seven semi-automatic pistols, all legal purchased. Get that last part? All legally purchased. This guy had a rap sheet a mile long, including felony assault. Why was it possibly for him to buy these weapons?

The outcome of the trial was a conviction for murder two. Had the shooter not stood on the stand and said, “at that very moment I was scared for my life,” it would have been murder one. The secondary result was both my daughter and myself are now dealing with PTSD, having dealt with the initially trauma and having to relive it again.

I do apologize for the long, drawn out accounting of a rather personal tragedy. This is actually the first time since the trial I’ve been able to talk about it. Please delete this if you feel it’s inappropriate in this space. I guess it’s a jumbled explanation of why I feel as I do about our current gun laws, open carry enthusiasts, Stand your ground laws, and the concept of everyone being armed “to promote safety.” Until you see for yourself the damage a gun does to someone you love, you really don’t have more than an intellectual understanding of why guns everywhere are not a good idea. Trust me, you don’t want to know on an experiential level. It may seem like a fine idea to arm the entire country. It’s not. As the old saying goes, “It’s all fun until somebody loses an eye."

Click here to visit the Everytown for Gun Safety website.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, WILX.com, FreedomOutpost.com, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Quandl.com, ListVerse.com, Harvard School of Public Health, ArmedwithReason.com, Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Kroger.com.