Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight.
I'm really glad Virginia decided to close the loophole that allowed the sale of guns to people with mental health problems (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/30cnd-virginia.html?hp). But it's also really frustrating to me that it took this display of gross inhumanity to change a law that's needed changing for years. I never really felt that strongly about gun control, and then I read a book about it for my freshman seminar. It's ridiculous how stupid our government is being. First of all, the U.S. has a very average crime rate for developed nations, but our lethal crime rate is disgustingly high, even compared to the other "frontier nations"- Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They hunt, too, but they also have some semblance of handgun laws. Amazing, I know. The presence of a gun in the home increases the chances of accidental gun deaths, suicide and homicide astronomically. And yet what is our government doing, as a trend? Creating more lax gun laws. Concealed carry is now allowed in almost every state, and the NRA is now working on "shoot first" legislation, which basically states if you feel threatened, you can shoot. The most awful part is the disconnect between public opinion and government action. Most of the public, most of gun owners, and even the majority of NRA members approve a slew of gun safety laws that the government again and again does enact because the NRA is such a powerful lobbyist. I'm not saying guns should be outlawed. But guns should be safer, and harder to get. Everyone thinks that, and yet it isn't happening. In fact, the very opposite is. The Virginia Tech massacre was a display of just how awful a gun can be if put in the wrong hands, so the state of Virginia passed legislation making it so that man wouldn't have been able to get a gun. But what about the hundreds of children who die every year playing with guns in their homes? What about all of the gun sales at gunshows that have absolutely no background checks? It shouldn't take an event like the shootings at Virginia Tech to prompt people to write legislation that should exist, plain and simple.