I am normally not one to jump the gun on a news story, but the horrific death toll from the Virginia Tech shootings today will not allow me my normal amount of caution. How is it possible that after Columbine, after 9/11 this type of massacre could take place?
The answer is simple. Guns.
The normal run of the mill person does not need guns. I do not have a gun in my home. My male relatives, who all hunt, have guns in their homes but those are normal shotguns--not semi-automatic handguns. Ask yourself this: WHAT POSSIBLE PURPOSE DO AUTOMATIC OR SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS SERVE IN OUR SOCIETY?
They kill. Pure and simple. They kill PEOPLE. You don't use a semi-automatic to kill a bird. You use it to commit a robbery...to off your spouse....to walk into a crowded classroom and execute the innocent. Despite the repeated attempts of NRA types to cite the constitutional right to bear arms, I'm reasonably certain that these types of weapons were not initially included in that right.
Nor should they be now.
Allow me to state for the record that I don't give a happy rat's ass right now about ANYONE'S right to bear arms. As more details come out about this, I may ameliorate my position on this--but I doubt it. Guns are too easily procurable in the US, too unregulated, and impossible to track. What weight does the right to bear arms have against the right to live that those victims had today?
Exactly. Not a damn bit.
Perhaps, as Blacksburg, Virginia grieves and people like me call their kids just for the reassurance of hearing their voices thanking God that it wasn't OUR lives affected, we can all take a minute and think. This does affect our lives. It changes the feeling of security we have for our children. The kids in college are supposed to be the *good* kids, the *safe* kids, the *smart* kids---this isn't supposed to happen, right?
Right?
Perhaps the NRA can take a moment too. Perhaps Charlton Heston can sit in his Hollywood mansion this afternoon, sipping a martini and pondering the influence he's had on this country. Perhaps, somewhere, someone will start making phone calls and say, "Hey, guys, you know: I think that we were probably wrong about this."
Yeah, I know. Dreams. The difference is that I still have mine. There are quite a few people not so far from here today that no longer HAVE their dreams.
Perhaps the freedom of the few should be compromised for the freedom of the many.
Forgive me while I go do something I haven't done for a long time. I'm going to go pray.
2 comments:
I don't tend to wear my politics on my sleeve online, but...yeah. There's no reason for anyone to have these kind of guns.
Unfortunately (and I'm sure you've already encountered this on the news or wherever), incidents like this make the NRA lean harder on their own agenda. Their argument is that, if the fine, upstanding, law-abiding kids with gun permits had been allowed to carry them on campus, they'd have been able to gun down this guy after his first kill.
Specious, I say, but that's their argument.
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