There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots. Henry David Thoreau
This a post I wrote and revised. Sadly and with a heavy heart I am writing again because of another tragedy, this time in Roseburg, Oregon. More dead and still the U.S. is electing people who are too cowardly to stand up and do what's right, pass legislation to aid prevention and treatment programs for the mentally ill, pass stricter background check laws, confiscate all assault weapons and ban them permanently. Let's be part of the solution and start hacking away at the roots of evil.
I, like most of the nation, am reeling from the news of the 12/14/2012 tragedy, the slaughter of the innocents in Newtown, Conneticut. Another deranged, suicidal young man has murdered twenty little children and six women. That's it for me: I am becoming involved in the movement to get these extremely dangerous weapons out of circulation. Why, for all that's good and holy, would anyone need to have an assault weapon? It makes about as much sense as having a personal rocket launcher or a personal drone. As I write this I can only imagine some of the demented thinking, "that's a mighty fine idea..." It is insane to risk the safety of our little children and our citizens to indulge the very few who demand these weapons.
The middle of the road is where the white line is, and that's the worst place to drive. Robert Frost
This destruction of our children, our people, has got to stop. There is every reason to not sit on the fence about this issue. If the legislatures are too cowardly to step up to the NRA and the weapons lobbies, then they should lose their jobs. We, citizens need to clamor for justice in the form of outlawing these assault weapons. Australia did just that in 1996 and
they've not had another slaughter since then.
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| Our children are our most precious resource |
Give me one good reason a citizen needs to own/use an assault weapon. One. The truth? There's money to be made by the evil weapon manufacturers so they try to convince people that it's their right. Don't be fooled, really it's greed, pure and simple. It's stupidity to be cowed by these people and absolute foolishness to overlook the greed element. Don't the people in the NRA have children, grandchildren, a heart? Ask them.
The following I wrote first in July, 2012 and then in August... I revisited it and decided to publish it again although it grieves me to even have to. I said then:
This is another very black time for Colorado. Yet another deranged individual who wishes for
notoriety at any cost has deluded himself into thinking fame will give him respite from his own insignificance. And yesterday, 8/5/2012 yet another deranged, sadly deluded young man killed six Sikhs at their temple in Wisconsin.
It is, of course, impossible to assign motives for killing innocent people. There really is no rationale that satisfies. However the persistence of artificial drama in the cases of the recent murderers, their poses, costumes, timing leads me to that inevitable conclusion: they desperately want to be noticed. Pathetic and very sad.
There have been studies of mass murderers, one I remember was of Charles Whitman in the 1960's. He murdered University of Texas students at random and earlier in the day, his mother and his wife. One of the discoveries was that he had a brain tumor, glioblastoma, that might have accounted for his warped thinking. He was also an amphetamine user and he had come from a family where the father was physically and emotionally abusive. Hmm.
The above description does seem to add up to a lethal combination, but I'm not convinced that every mass murderer has all of those features. Certainly that wasn't true of the young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebolt who had good homes and loving parents. Indeed the commonality with the latest mass murderer, James Holmes is that they were white, young males with a high need for drama, a very bad feelings about themselves, a worse attitude about humanity and, of course, an easy access to a plethora of assault weapons. I realize no one is going to attack me for writing about the drama angle, or the low self worth or their lack of compassion and actual hatred for their fellow humans. But you know as well as I do if I point one tiny finger at the obvious--
easy access to guns, wow, will some people get defensive. They want to deny that the glorifying of guns and the use by these young men of the assault weapon has anything to do with these mass murders.
I'm not so sure we should outlaw guns but instead make each bullet cost about $500. Then it would be like, 'I'm gonna shoot you, after I save up to buy a bullet'! Chris Rock
How on earth can anyone prevent mass murder? Truthfully, I'm not sure we can predict who'd be a candidate for such a huge heinous crime. But we certainly don't need to glamorize it, nor to endlessly focus on it. Wouldn't it be great if instead the focus was on prevention? Wouldn't it be great if we would have licenses that actually screened for suspicious behavior, and licenses for responsibility and competence with a weapon? We do after all license our cars and our citizen who drive those cars. Another thing, I've heard it said that we can't hold the gun sellers responsible for the crimes committed by the criminals. We hold the bartenders and restaurateurs responsible for a drunk who has left their establishment and ends up killing someone in a car accident. Fat chance, I realize, to get the lawmakers to toughen our laws, but it's a nice fantasy of mine and a good idea. Better than the nothing that's normally done after each of these horrendous murders. Nothing.
The entertainment industry could do their part also. What sense does it make to have our children swallowed whole by the entertainment industry, that makes the grossly violent movies, and worse, the hate filled video games [Cop Killers, really?]. When are the citizens going to see that some of the legislatures are bought and sold by the gun lobbies? It makes no sense that our citizens are armed to the teeth and there is no stopping the NRA with their campaign of "guns don't kill people...people kill people." Guns without ammo won't kill people, that's true. It should be against the law to have an assault weapon with a 'magazine' on that gun that fires rapidly killing massive amounts of people. But, I'm with Chris Rock, and that's an even better fantasy: legislate for prohibitively expensive bullets. Bring those on!
Please join me. In our state there is the Washington Association for Gun Responsibility, find out what is the most effective organize you could contribute to. Call your legislator and perhaps we need to take to the streets and protest the ineptness of the government on gun control.
This is not the time to be Republican or Democrat about this issue. This is time to be a caring American who demands safety for all of our citizens. Take a stand, call your legislature today and say we are sick of the gun lobby and the NRA co opting our safety. Let's get those assault weapons out of circulation today. Let's get some treatment programs for the mentally ill.
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| A pregnant young woman trying to protecting her unborn child from Mt. Vesuvius that erupted in the 1st century. The instinct to protect our children should be this strong. |
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