Run And Hide.

fffemme:

This is the only thing I have to say about gun control.

I think people should be able to have guns. I don’t like guns, I personally don’t think people should have them, they terrify me, but it is a Constitutional right and regardless of the fact that it was drafted for the purpose of militias in the 1700s, it is your right to own a gun.

What is amazing to me is that most of the people publicly against new gun control laws seem to be the same people identifying as constitutional and biblical originalists (not including the libertarians). That anyone thinks the Second Amendement, written in 1791,  intends to allow you the fundamental right to own an assault rifle built for war that fires 5 bullets in a second is beyond me. Regardless of the Second Amendment, no one needs a semi-automatic weapon for protection, for target shooting, for the feeling of enjoyment of having one. Somehow every other Western country has managed to avoid a spree of gun massacres, and they view our gun laws as absurd. 

The NRA Facebook page went down right after news of the CT shooting broke. Their Twitter has been silent since December 13. Meet the Press contacted all 31 self-proclaimed gun rights advocates in Congress and invited them on the show. Want to guess how many of them wanted to go to national television and argue for your right to own a semi-automatic weapon? Zero.

I refuse to take anyone or any organization that considers themselves anti-new gun control laws for assault weapons seriously until they walk up to someone who has lost a friend, a lover, or a family member to random acts of violence and says “You know, I am really, truly sad and horrified about what has happened, but my right to own an assault rifle that takes magazine after magazine and allows 26 people to be murdered in minutes trumps that.” It baffles me that so many pro-gun advocates don’t feel that the right to own a gun, just like other rights, should be navigated through safe and secure avenues that keep their friends and neighbors as safe as possible.

Guns are not the only problem here. Sensationalization of these incidents by the media, intense profiling of mass murderers and the ongoing curiosity of the public likely propels copycats. America’s gun culture, quite unique to us, is partially to blame. Mental illness, the other excuse to surface whenever an incident like this happens, is definitely partially to blame. We have bankrupted our mental health services while we spend millions on a culture of violence that hero-worships the military and kills children with drone strikes in countries who are not threatening us. However, it is dangerous to push all of the blame on mental illness. Most people who have mental illnesses are not going to go off the rails and murder innocent people. People with mental illnesses are not inherently harmful or dangerous. Is mental illness a huge factor in violent crime? Absolutely. But on the same day as the CT horrors, a man walked into a Chinese school with a knife and stabbed around 20 people. None of them died. Mental illness cannot be solely responsible for that. That blame lies, rightfully, on guns.

We’ve got a big, big problem, and up until now, a few weeks after mass shootings it seems like no one cares. I really hope that changes after the unspeakable tragedies in CT, as so many pieces of the system need to be adjusted. 

People kill people, and people will kill each other no matter how many laws we write down, but that doesn’t mean we should be handing them the ammo to do it even more quickly and efficiently each time. The fact that we can prevent tragedies like the ones we’ve seen escalating in this country and choose not to is disgusting. It is unforgivable. We should be ashamed.