I've been hearing a lot on the news from politicians who want to "do something" so that this terrible tragedy "never happens again". It represents contrasting qualities that I both love and hate about my country. The positive side is American optimism. That Micky Rooney addressing the whole town "Gee wiz fellas let's all get together and fix this problem! We can do it if we all work together!"
The part I hate is when we act like a mob of dumbasses and reduce the complex problems of life into a "fixable" problem. There have been a bunch of good points about many aspects of this problem and lots of good counters. The fact is that this kid had mental problems and "went off". Plenty of people saw "warning signs" but there lots of kids showing "warning signs" so perhaps greater awareness of risky kids might help, and maybe not. We can't exactly just lock up all the risky kids. This situation may not have a solution. I agree with your point about the futility of going after "bad guns". We love our freedoms more than anything here in the US and we never successfully ban anything. This cat is already out of the bag even if we never made another gun. When I became a home owner I bought a gun thinking that I would like to have another option if some a-hole invaded my house other than "please don't hurt my wife and me sir". In the actual risks of my life driving around the Capitol Beltway it was a fairly lame thing to focus on, but it gave me a bit of piece of mind when I heard the occasional bump in the night. Learning to shoot my gun was an interesting education in handling a lethal weapon safely. The smell of cordite clears your mind faster then a line of coke. People were soooo polite at the firing range. I didn't see a group of guys act so considerately around each other till I started Brazilian Jiu-jitsu classes. Excellent manners are essential if you are practicing choking someone out or shooting a weapon. So as the politicians posture about "doing something", I am both repulsed by their BS and comforted by a county that took in this family from Korea. For every sad loser like this nutjob our country has millions of success stories. One of the things I love about living with a high percentage of fairly recent immigrants is their positive love for America. My neighbors don't have a snarky cell in their bodies and it creates an optimistic updraft that I enjoy. The people in the stores around me are REALLY glad to see me. No sullen teens who hate their first jobs. The guy who sells me my Vietnamese lunch is one of the happiest people I see all day. (His story of getting here is a made-for-TV movie with the word "hero" and "against all odds" somewhere in the title) So we may never find a fix for situations like this one. It may just be something that happens occasionally that we have to deal with and lose tears over. But I dig that we follow the dream that this kind of problem is fixable and it may do some good to focus on this problem with that confidence that there might be a "solution". At least until we all get completely distracted by Paris Hilton flashing some yoni again. --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "uns_tressor" <uns_tressor@> > wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "shempmcgurk" <shempmcgurk@> > > wrote: > > > > > > Discuss amongst yourselves. > > > > There is a perverse logic here. But it is perverse. > > We in England are defeated by Americans' love > > of guns. The danger of the Apaches galloping > > over the horizon is relatively low nowadays, I > > am told. > > > > There must be conditions that would get even those > > in the soutern states to lobby to ban guns. > > "Banning guns" is a specious argument, one > that has no meaning whatsoever. At last count, > there were almost as many guns in America as > there are people. If you impose restrictions > on the legal sale of new guns, what happens > to the old ones? The reaction of even the > strongest, most patriotic Bush supporter in > America to a State or Federal official showing > up at his door and demanding his guns would > be to shoot him. > > And, given the history of what has happened > when almost *anything* was declared illegal > in America, how long after a gun sale ban > would it take before an enormous underground > economy developed to sell guns illegally? > > IMO, the absolute *stupidity* of dealing with > issues like this latest school shooting by > calling for "tougher gun laws" is exposed by > the Fairfield Ledger editorial that Bob posted. > It would be *just* as effective as dealing with > a society's desire to take consciousness- > altering drugs by making thim illegal; we all > know how well *that* has worked in America, > don't we? > > The problem is not the guns per se. The problem > is a population that is so insane that it uses > those guns to kill each other on a regular basis. > The Swiss have a percentage of handgun ownership > about half of the US percentage, but a handgun > murder rate (adjusted by population) less than > one fifth of the US rate. > > If what you want to do is cut down on the number > of deaths as a result of guns, one could make a > stronger case for achieving that by banning > *Americans* than by banning guns. > > Then again, given Americans' propensity to kill > each other, there is probably no need for that > law, either. Give them enough guns and enough > time, and the problem will resolve itself. >
