In the wake of yet another school shooting–this time, the 27 dead included many young children–I will simply cite some facts posted by Ezra Klein:
Mother Jones has tracked and mapped every shooting spree in the last three decades. “Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii,” they found. And in most cases, the killers had obtained their weapons legally….
The Harvard Injury Control Research Center assessed the literature on guns and homicide and found that there’s substantial evidence that indicates more guns means more murders. This holds true whether you’re looking at different countries or different states….
Last year, economist Richard Florida dove deep into the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators. Some of what he found was, perhaps, unexpected: Higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not correlated with more deaths from gun violence. But one thing he found was, perhaps, perfectly predictable: States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths. The disclaimer here is that correlation is not causation. But correlations can be suggestive.
As they said in their promotions a while back
“THIS IS THE NRA”
Yep, it is.
This is the fruit of their labors
Amendment II
Right to bear arms
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Adam Lanza was not a “well regulated Militia” nor was he concerned about the “security of a free State”. This Amendment is totally open to interpretation which has brought about the deaths of countless innocent Americans by criminals, mentally ill, angry out of control people and is protected by law in our courts. The NRA pays our elected politicians to protect this “right”, lawyers get rich using this Amendment to protect the rights of criminals and the victim count keeps mounting. Most of these recent victims were barely out of the toddler stage but this entire incident will quickly fade from the hearts and minds of many who cry today. Twenty-six families are shattered in this one tragedy; the community is currently in a shambles and law enforcement will spend hundreds of hours and millions of tax dollars to investigate the situation and will reach the conclusion that Ms. Lanza was well within her 2nd Amendment rights by arming her mentally ill son. God bless America!
And the NRA’s response is to go out there and get yourself armed, get the teachers and adminstrators armed, get everybody armed! I still maintain that it’s comma placement in that Second Amendment…comma placement and interpretation of just who is to be armed. Personally, I believe it’s the militia that needs to be armed to protect “the people”. (See Ezra Klein’s reference to Harvard Injury Control.)
The Lanza woman (parent of the alleged perp) collected guns, owned six, and was likely fearful of her own son). Six unnecessary guns led to the murders of at least +/- 27 people: 12 little girls, 6 adults (all women), and the numbers could still rise. Sounds like hatred of women to me…at least hatred of his own mother. He had been in bad shape for a long time, dating back to childhood. He could have resented her for the divorce. Oh, but we can’t ask either of them because they’re both dead.
If you’ve read Truss’ “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves,” you can appreciate the value of the comma and its placement. The poorly punctuated sentence that caused Lynne Truss to write the book should have read “Eats Shoots and Leaves”.
God save us all from being armed!
I’m pretty pro-gun, but even I know that unless we have serious changes on all fronts, these things aren’t going to stop. Changes from our past culture, made up of morals, beliefs, and actions, has changed dramatically. As a non-religious, social liberal but fiscal conservative, I see individual, narcissistic greed taking over the country. I had some poor grand parents, and they did what they needed to advance in life. However, too many poor people today demand an upper middle class lifestyle, and they don’t want to be told they need to do this or that. They just want government to cut them a check so they can have everything “everyone else has.” Then you have people in the middle and upper middle classes demanding for their cut. Then you have the very wealthy who also want their cut. This attitude is causing many problems, causing each individual to believe they are “owed” something, and when they don’t get that, I think some of them lose it.
We close mental hospitals, but pass 1-2% sales taxes to fund billion dollar stadiums for billionaire business owners so they can run their business and pay out hundreds of millions in payroll to a small group of people. What kind of logic is this? We have too many people who thinks some kids can be saved. We need to come to a reality that some special ed types just can’t be saved, and many could easily flip and end up doing some horrific things. Instead of shoving them into public education facilities, we should have special facilities and asses these people from a different angle.
We need to seriously think about gun control, the correct balance between allowing the law-abiding the protection they deserve which also helps prevent these mass shootings. Some ideas would be to only allow one semi-auto rifle per person, limiting magazine capacity to ten rounds, etc.. However, there are literally thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of semi-auto, magazine feed rifles out there. Many are very costly, and if we can bailout billionaires and millionaires or pay out good money for “clunkers,” then let the government buy back these rifles. Many AR rifles were purchased in the $800-$1,500 range. They would have to ban these rifles, no more can be made or imported, then offer $2,000, maybe even $3,000 to get people to turn in these rifles. I would oppose any ban on semi-auto handguns, lever action rifles, bolt action rifles, pump action rifles/shotguns, semi-auto shotguns, etc.. Police can’t protect us, and law-abiding citizens need the ability to protect themselves. A lot of pro-gun folks just don’t trust the government to be there when they need them most. These semi-auto rifles do offer a lot in terms of personal protection, home defense. However, many people could easily get just as much protection from a lever action .357.
Another factor is that we are soft on gun crime, and this is another reason the law-abiding want these sorts of weapons. Again, it goes back to priorities. Here in Indy, we spend over a billion dollars for sports facilities for billionaires, but have an overcrowded jail system. Even at the state level, there are numerous dangerous people out and about that have very long, and shocking, criminal histories. Don’t worry though, instead of building more cages for these dangerous people, we will spend a billion dollars on a silly fixed rail train so rich suburbanites from Hamilton Co. can play on their iPhones while getting a ride to work in downtown Indy.
This morning my Facebook account is buried under messages from Americans Against the Tea Party. While I am irritated at so many unsolicited messages; their messages are well worth reading and heeding…especially on the issue of guns in light of the Newtown massacre of little children and their protective teachers on Friday.