First, my heart goes out to all those hurt & killed in
the theatre shooting last night in Aurora, CO.
They were there for the premier of Dark
Knight Rises, sitting quietly inside, hurting no one, & a freaking lunatic destroyed what
began as an innocent evening for some adults & kids! Apparently they have the suspect in custody
but now they’ve discovered he booby-trapped his apartment. Jeesh!
They’re everywhere these days it seems.
Just last week a shooting took place at a local mall in my town; fortunately in the parking lot so at least no innocents were involved. It was reported as a drug & gun deal gone badly. I’ve only lived here 3 years but apparently this is the norm in these parts due to increasingly high population & not enough police. To worsen matters, Virginia just passed a law where its citizens can purchase guns in bulk as opposed to the one gun per month law previously. (Who in heck even needed a gun/month??) Now, this gives unscrupulous gun buyers a chance to buy/sell them in parking lots & resell them to other thugs across state lines. Ugh!! I realize some would have us blame crime these days on the unemployment factor. There are some cases I’ve seen in my area where folks stole food due to unemployment & they were not receiving public assistance. But the way I see it, drug & gun crimes are not primarily due to unemployment. We've all witnessed what havoc people with guns have wreaked in years of higher employment & prosperity, (Columbine for instance) so that argument is out the window. If someone’s unemployed & strapped for cash, they shouldn’t have $$ for drugs & guns. If they do, those items are not what they should be spending savings or unemployment on!
Just last week a shooting took place at a local mall in my town; fortunately in the parking lot so at least no innocents were involved. It was reported as a drug & gun deal gone badly. I’ve only lived here 3 years but apparently this is the norm in these parts due to increasingly high population & not enough police. To worsen matters, Virginia just passed a law where its citizens can purchase guns in bulk as opposed to the one gun per month law previously. (Who in heck even needed a gun/month??) Now, this gives unscrupulous gun buyers a chance to buy/sell them in parking lots & resell them to other thugs across state lines. Ugh!! I realize some would have us blame crime these days on the unemployment factor. There are some cases I’ve seen in my area where folks stole food due to unemployment & they were not receiving public assistance. But the way I see it, drug & gun crimes are not primarily due to unemployment. We've all witnessed what havoc people with guns have wreaked in years of higher employment & prosperity, (Columbine for instance) so that argument is out the window. If someone’s unemployed & strapped for cash, they shouldn’t have $$ for drugs & guns. If they do, those items are not what they should be spending savings or unemployment on!
There’s an NRA slogan saying “Guns don’t kill people, people
kill people.” {Their point being guns usually
don't fire without human intervention, and that the real solution to violence
is not in making any certain potentially lethal device unavailable, but in
changing basic human nature from violent to peaceful.} Yeah, well good luck with THAT! I’m sure we’ll all breathe a lot easier when
the NRA comes up with that happy pill to turn the world around. But ‘till then, what if we applied the NRA
attitude & slogan towards cancer. “Cancer
doesn’t kill people, people kill people.”
That way folks can continue smoking, drinking, drugging, abusing their
bodies & when they die it’ll be called a suicide! After
all, they were the ones putting the bad stuff in their own bodies, just like
the shooters put the guns in their own hands, right?? But wait..
what about those who don’t deliberately abuse themselves and still get
cancer due to issues beyond their control?
What about those who don’t pack a pistol & still get shot due to
people with no self-control? Which one
of these scenario’s do you think could be cured the quickest, cancer or gun regulation?
It’s mind boggling isn’t it? And yet I have to say I’ve never heard of
anyone being robbed, raped, kidnapped or otherwise held up by someone
threatening them with cancer.
Sadly, our government officials and political candidates often look the other way regarding the issues of gun control. They make grand solemn speeches offering comfort to the families of shooting victims, but if that were your relative, would a “comfort speech” really ease your pain & make it “right?” The NRA complains that non-gun owners want to hold the gun manufacturers liable for crimes. I think it’s the criminals who are allowed to continually purchase them who should be held accountable along with the legislators & gun lobbyists who support their right to do so! Unfortunately, each time a criminal goes to jail for using a gun illegally, it’s the taxpayer who must pay for his/her daily keep in prison. Prisons are overcrowded as it is now, and some inmates are paroled early to make room for others going in. Those convicts paroled back on the streets, getting public assistance & returning to their life of crime, sneaking around public parking lots after dark to buy more guns & drugs either for personal use or resale are not the victims here! Personally, I don’t want or plan to be a victim, but especially not a victim of “irony!” I hope this never happens to you or me, but… we never know-- the gun that may be pulled on us in a theatre or mall by some thought depraved criminal may very well have been purchased by our own ‘tax dollars at work.’
Sadly, our government officials and political candidates often look the other way regarding the issues of gun control. They make grand solemn speeches offering comfort to the families of shooting victims, but if that were your relative, would a “comfort speech” really ease your pain & make it “right?” The NRA complains that non-gun owners want to hold the gun manufacturers liable for crimes. I think it’s the criminals who are allowed to continually purchase them who should be held accountable along with the legislators & gun lobbyists who support their right to do so! Unfortunately, each time a criminal goes to jail for using a gun illegally, it’s the taxpayer who must pay for his/her daily keep in prison. Prisons are overcrowded as it is now, and some inmates are paroled early to make room for others going in. Those convicts paroled back on the streets, getting public assistance & returning to their life of crime, sneaking around public parking lots after dark to buy more guns & drugs either for personal use or resale are not the victims here! Personally, I don’t want or plan to be a victim, but especially not a victim of “irony!” I hope this never happens to you or me, but… we never know-- the gun that may be pulled on us in a theatre or mall by some thought depraved criminal may very well have been purchased by our own ‘tax dollars at work.’
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http://www.kcautv.com/story/19074253/aurora-co-shooting-update-on-victims-and-investigation
I think when it comes time for your next election, you might want to consider voting out any idiot who allowed that new law to take effect. How stupid. Who in the world needs even one gun a month, let alone more? I don't have one, don't want one.
ReplyDeletePeople who think we all have the right to bear arms are not forward thinkers. In the old west everyone carried a gun, there was a load of lawlessness and killings and drunks riding about shooting at anything that moved. Do we really want to go back to that? Only the idiots do! If gun carriers had been in that theater and tried to shooot that guy, chances are higher they'd of shot innocent people too!
ReplyDeleteIn the wake of yet another mass shooting - this one at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin - I can't help but think that this has become our new normal. Nothing saddens me more, as the ridiculous argument that might have made sense during the frontier days is now a sad excuse for arming society to the teeth.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to say we in Canada somehow know better. But we've had enough of our own shootings in recent months. Some days, I feel like throwing up my arms in defeat: we seem to have missed the script somewhere.