Saturday, July 21, 2012

Position Paper

Completely unnerved by the murders in Colorado.  Not really sure why, but my stomach won't stop churning.  Why in the world a politician --- any politician --- won't sac up and tell the NRA and all other gun fetishists (as one writer called them) that we're sick of their nonsense is beyond me.  And that some people are actually saying that if other people in that theater had had guns it would have ended "better"?  Are you kidding me?  My God, what kind of country have we become?  And shut up about movies and video games.  If they were, indeed, inciters of violence, then every person who watched a film or handled a controller would be mowing people down.  That "explanation" holds no water at all.

The psychological explanations of murder are many and complicated.  But being able to sit in your house and order military weapons, battle armor, and thousands of rounds of ammunition off the Internet does no one any good.  A "sane" person has no need for any of that.  None.  An "insane" person can have no good need.  And please don't play the "only a crazy person would do something like that" card.  Check with folks you believe have a full and unwavering grip on reality and find out how many of them have guns in their homes.  And if shooters truly are insane, then they cannot --- legally --- be held responsible for their actions.  If they are crazy, we cannot punish them.  We must treat them.

And then send them back out into a society where anyone can buy any gun at any time.

Where's the crazy now?

3 comments:

Bridget said...

Well put! There are, of course, the "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Puh-leeze. Sounds like a really bad FOX tv special - When Guns Go Bad.

kathy b said...

your thoughts are very interesting. It does unnerve us all. I read a good editorial about it yesterday; wish I could recall the author.

Carrie K said...

I'm really against gun control where no guns are allowed because I've seen just how easily people who should NOT have guns can get them - and believe me, that's not going to change.

But I do think it's crazy to have assault rifles etc so available. Seriously? Handguns. At best. And no, an armed populace would not have deterred that particular guy.

The other part of the equation is even trickier - mental illness. We are equally passionate about civil liberties as we are about constitutional rights to bear arms and we need to take a good hard look at BOTH of those.

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