What force or reason would impel a person to take a gun and deliberately shoot helpless young children?
I suppose if you are God-fearing the answer is simpler - we didn't pray enough, so God stood aside while Evil caused the shooter to execute 26 innocent humans. It's ironic to hear the survivors' parents thanking God that their child was spared. How heartless that must sound to the relatives of the dead children that God did not protect.
The secular among us cannot be consoled by the simplistic explanations by religion. We don't believe that the shooter will burn for eternity in hell (much as that would be comforting to us), nor do we imagine 26 angel wings rising to spend eternity in paradise. It is pretty clear that the churches and temples of humans are empty and useless. No one is there to hear the supplications, songs and glory. Probably never has been.
Events like the shootings in Connecticut are proof that there is no divine intervention in the affairs of men.
It is pretty obvious that the deus ex machina allowing these mass killings is the access to weapons that are designed to shoot many rounds in a brief period of time. Call them semi-automatic or assault weapons - it is the same concept. These are not guns that are designed to shoot game or targets. They are weapons of warfare.
We have a gun problem in this country. The easy availability of guns and large quantities of ammunition is obviously a factor in the number of deaths. The idiotic interpretation of the 2nd amendment to the Constitution is that everyone is entitled to have guns period. Even if the congress mean't that everyone should have a rifle, it is doubtful that they envisioned a weapons technology more complex that a single shot musket.
Times have changed and so must the government's power to regulate weapons access in the name of public safety. I would support a repeal of the second amendment. I do not support a total ban on gun ownership.
Legitimate hunters and sportsmen would be licensed and permitted, but the weapons and ammo they could use would be highly controlled. Steel jacket, armor piercing, soft nose bullets, designed for killing people would be banned out side of military use. All semiautomatic pistols and rifles should be banned except for Military and Law Enforcement use.
Enforcement of such controls will not be popular with the gun-toting public. But I do not see another way to stem the frequency and brutality of murderous/suicidal crazoids armed with a gun that they should not have had access to. NRA fans have always been vigorously opposed to any restrictions on access to weapons less destructive than a bazooka. With over 10,000 gun deaths in the USA last year, we should probably label the enabling NRA as a terrorist organization.
7 comments:
Perfectly rational analysis. However, why does the NRA take such extreme stands? Perhaps because the battle against guns is never-ending? Just like Bloomberg is getting rid of 16 oz. soft drinks, gun owners know that any concession (however rational) will only engender the next ... and the next ... and the next demand for more restrictions ... until the Second Amendment is kaput.
I though 16 oz was ok in NY; it was the larger ones that were prohibited, because they were responsible for illness leading to early death.
That damn Bloomberg, trying to preserve life! But you are on to a pretty good analogy; they will have to pry giant soda cups from some cold dead hands.
Whenever gun control comes up, I'm reminded of an episode of "All in the Family" where Gloria is lecturing Archie on the preponderance and growth of gun deaths, with Archie responding, "Well, little girl, would you feel any better if they were pushed out of windows?
As a non-owner, I hesitate to give a public opinion, just like as a man I hesitate to trumpet any opinions on abortion. But it is true that guns don't kill people, the nuts holding the guns do.
Let's just ban all guns weighing more than 16 oz.
Two comments;
1. Why would you look to Archie Bunker for even a scintilla of wisdom?
2. Assault weapons are designed to kill people, no other purpose. Put them in the hands of a nut, and lots of people will die - needlessly.
Assault weapons are designed to kill people only because they are called "assault weapons." The Bushmaster .21 used in Newtown does not meet the legal definition of an assault weapon. Liberals are swimming in a pond of semantic sliminess. Looks are the gating item even though there may not be any functional difference.
Did you know that there is a computer game in which the player shoots young children or one where the player is Lee Harvey Oswald aiming and firing at JFK? Of course not. The anti-gun nuts are often as disarranged as these game designers ... who then are the mentors of much of this senseless violence. Liberals salivate at a chance to get rid of all guns ... but leave these computer games alone. They open up the looney bins because skitzos have the Constitutional right to walk the streets and buy violent computer games, but I can't protect myself and my grandchildren against them.
I scratch my head in illogical awe.
Holy crap, I PLAY video games with my grandchildren where we fight and kill monsters, demons and human enemies and loot their corpses. Will they turn out to be violent skitzos? Will I?
You are wrong about what makes Liberals salivate. Clearly, it is raising taxes on rich guys!
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