Common Sense
Have you hugged your child gun today?
The last 24 hours have been maddening for me and it will only get worse in the days to come. First came the unspeakable horror of the slaughter of children. Before we knew the scope of the massacre I read a man quoting Thomas Jefferson on Facebook on the need for a well armed citizenry to defend against the tyranny of government ... as if this had anything to do with oppression. Gun lovers began citing the 2nd amendment and blaming the ban of guns in schools as the cause of this horrible act. My head nearly exploded, so I went into sarcasm mode with the following.
"What's all the fuss? This is just another patriot exercising his right to bear arms. If one of those kids was packing heat a third grader could have taken the shooter out."
In the absence if logic from the gun side of the debate I tend to get all snarky on them. I can't help it, I find their over-the-top fear, paranoia and lack of reason so laughable I have no choice but mock them. Every time there's a gun massacre the NRA and the selfish gun lovers go into auto-defense mode, and they blame gun control liberals for having a knee-jerk reaction. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. The red herrings and false equivalencies are mind boggling. Do people really think like this?
I am not against the 2nd amendment, I don't want guns confiscated, it is our right to own a firearm, I simply choose to pass. I have never owned a gun in my life. The inability of the gun lobby to see danger in having assault rifles readily available to the public causes me to lean towards more control. If a sane gun owner can't see the logic of a ban on weapons of mass destruction, you can be certain the hardcore right wing lunatics won't have it.
They live in a constant state of fear and paranoia, cloaked in the cover freedom and patriotism, that Obama and the UN will confiscate their weapons. This is proof of their insanity. They have no grasp on reality. These assault weapons are out there, hundreds of thousands, already in the hands of unstable faketriots. Can you imagine the bloodshed that would stain the land if the Federal government attempted to retroactively ban assault weapons, and then enforce it through confiscation? Take Ruby Ridge and Waco, multiply by 1000, and you might come close. It will never happen, but in the simple minds of the arsenal owner there's already an ATF battalion outside the gates of their compound.
I believe I've reached the point where it's not the proliferation of firearms in America that disturbs me, it's the people who have them. I know some assault weapon owners. I've fired an AR-15, SIG-556 and AK-47. My friend who owns them is a decent man, a true friend who just loves gun technology; but he also ran to the gun lobby auto-defense before the bodies of these children were cold. I chose to not reply for the sake of our friendship.
Yes, this is the time to have the debate, when the damage done by a mentally ill man with free access to firearms is fresh in our minds. We must have reasonable laws to keep these killing machines out of the hands of nut cases. No law will be 100% affective, someone will get a gun and shoot up a mall after we pass a nationwide law. Every state should have high standards for gun ownership so it must be Federal. We can't trust Mississippi or Arizona to do the right thing.
Rhode Island requires a written gun safety test to obtain a 'blue card' that enables you to by a gun. Once you choose a gun you undergo a full background check and have a seven day waiting period, Your blue card provides the info leading to registration with state, it's automatically done at the gun shop. In Arizona you can walk into a gun shop, choose your weapon, and after a two-minute online NCIS checkup you walk out with a gun and ammunition; no waiting period, no FBI background check and no registration of that firearm.
In 2002 I relocated from a sane gun state to a state of unmeasurable gun stupidity. Every state is a gun state, even the blue ones, but blue states are clearly more responsible. Gun lovers will never support a model based on those in the northeast, the region with the fewest gun related homicides. They also won't accept bans on new assault weapons, high velocity rounds, large capacity clips or any measure that could reduce the carnage in future attacks.
The media blitz will be too much to bear in the coming week, as will the heated debate on guns and violence. I needed to get this off my mind for the sake of my own sanity, I will now attempt a semi-media blackout and not discuss guns with anyone.
As a parent of adult children I can only imagine the feeling of parents all over this nation after they heard the news of Sandy Hook but were stuck at work wishing they could see their young school children. Millions of Americans went home last night and hugged their children, thankful violence didn't visit their school on this terrible day .... others went home and hugged their guns.