There are things we could do to reduce mass shootings, but we won't.
If we did try to do those things, they wouldn't work.
Face it. This is America. We are going to live with this.
Americans are going through the stages of grief, and I am past Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Depression. I have come to Acceptance. This is America. We are going to keep having mass murder events.
Democrats talk about "common sense gun regulation." They are Bargaining. They propose background checks. They propose changing the age for buying AR-15s from 18 to 21. They propose somehow "keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill." They propose banning "assault rifles" if they can define them. They propose banning anonymous gun sales at gun shows. They propose banning ghost guns without serial numbers. The modesty of their proposals reveals their hopelessness. Can't we limit a magazine size from 30 bullets to 10? Can't we at least force a mass shooter to reload more often?
No, we cannot. That proposal cannot pass. None of those "common sense" proposals will pass. The incentives for GOP officeholders are to hold the line and be all-in on gun rights. It's a litmus test for their voters, and even though Democratic proposals test well in polls, everyone knows that they are the tiniest of band aids. They wouldn't stop mass murder events at schools, nightclubs, concerts, grocery stores, places of worship, or any other place people gather. AR-15s are a slightly faster way to kill multiple people, but rifles and handguns do it about as well, as experience has shown. Democrats propose background checks on the mentally ill or people with a record of domestic violence, but we rarely know in advance who is crazy enough to do mass murder. The hints come from looking backward, with hindsight. We cannot lock up everyone who believes screwy things; too many people do.
Nothing will change. It will remain thoughts and prayers. The problem isn't the Second Amendment, nor the NRA, nor intransigent Republicans. The problem is us, the American citizen. We like our guns. By "we" I don't mean "gun nuts" or the mentally ill. I mean a vast number of Americans who want guns for themselves. Sure, they want them out of the hands of mass murderers, but they look like everyone else, right up until they start shooting. The genie is out of the bottle. There are some 400 million guns out there in circulation in America, with more all the time. As long as guns are ubiquitous and legal, people who want them will get them. If guns were illegal they would still be ubiquitous and readily available.
Republicans deny. Governor Abbott said, "There are no words that anyone who comes up here that can do anything. We need to focus not on our agendas, but on the healing and hope we can provide to those who have suffered unconscionable damage to their lives." Thoughts and prayers.
For GOP officeholders, the problem is mental illness, not guns. Of course universal comprehensive health care, including mental health, would be socialism--so that is off the table. The real GOP solution is more guns. Arm school teachers and store clerks and nightclub customers. Encourage a citizenry ready and able to shoot back if they identify the criminal shooter as contrasted with a fellow shoot-back defender. Meanwhile harden soft targets. Put solid fences around schools. Reduce exit doors. Put armed people on the doors of movie theaters, grocery stores, and places people gather. Protect ourselves. More TSA.
20 comments:
No. There are issues that matter and this is one of them.
Abortion
Health Care
Assault Weapons
Just because Republicans cannot gain power without pandering to religious extremists, gun fetishism, and racist bigots. Just because they spin and twist the law into arguments that insult our intelligence and common sense. Just because they serve the interests of the gun makers and insurance companies is no reason to try to stop the senseless killing of our children.
Don't give up.
The U.S. is overrun with extremists, but who they are depends on your tribe. Liberals are concerned about madmen with guns unleashing their fury on the public in a hail of bullets. Conservatives are more worried about the “woke” and their annoying quest for social justice. Red states have been quick to pass laws protecting schoolchildren from being “indoctrinated” with Black history, but refuse to protect them from mass murderers by requiring universal background checks and outlawing guns designed to rapidly kill as many people as possible.
As the headline in The Onion said, “NO WAY TO PREVENT THIS,” SAYS ONLY NATION WHERE THIS REGULARLY HAPPENS. It's the American way.
This is America! You can't drive a car or do much of anything without having insurance. If you have a gun be required to buy liability insurance to pay for these kinds of human caused murders. Use the capitalistic principles of the marketplace to rein-in misuse of weapons. Permit the victims survivors the ability to sue gun manufactures and gun sellers.
I agree with Rick. We can't just give up on our kids. They deserve so much better. We did not grow up with mass shootings this prevalent and neither should they. It is unacceptable. Anything that makes it more difficult to get the most dangerous types of guns is a good thing.
Australia managed their mass shooting problem with licensing, buybacks and forfeiture. Most importantly, they enforced their new laws.
We shouldn't accept this insane violence as normal and throw our hands up and say there's nothing we can do about it, and it is what it is, anymore than abolitionists were willing to accept slavery. Pushing for common sense gun control measures (several of which Peter alluded to) is a fight that is worth pursuing even in the face of intractable resistance from Republicans. I know I won't be just sitting back and accepting this as an unchangeable status quo, that is for damn sure.
It is absolute BS that my schoolteacher wife, 8 year old daughter, and 6 year old son have to do active shooter drills in their school. Any measures that can be taken that make it even a tiny bit harder for lunatics to get their hands on weapons meant for mass killing (which is literally the ONLY purpose of AR-15's and similar guns) are worth fighting for.
Just because progress seems slow or even impossible doesn't mean we stop. I will NOT accept the status quo and will do everything I can to change it.
Policy and change, NOT thoughts and prayers.
I agree with several other commenters that we should not give up. Also, fighting this is a democratic party effort that will attract voters, who do not want us to give up.
We could do a lot better on background checks. We could license guns, which seems wise.
There needs to be some kind of reward system for turning in people who post evil intentions on facebook or Messenger, or the other social media. Doing damage to animals is a real sign of a problem person.
Also, we need to step up activities against school bullies, and do more to help and to challenge those beta males who are often the shooters.
There is definitely something unique about America: the Second Amendment. If you don’t like how that amendment has shaped the country, your course of action is clear: pass a new constitutional amendment. All you need to do is get most of the country to agree.
What you cannot do in America is impose your will on those who do not agree with you.
Here is something positive we can do in Oregon. The Oregon Reduction of Gun Violence Act (Statewide Initiative Petition 17) needs 140,000 signatures by July 8 to get on the November 2022 ballot. Here is the link to the website: https://www.lifteveryvoiceoregon.com. All you have to do read the petition, then if you agree, download the petition, sign and put it in the mail.
Guns don't kill. People do. Don't blame violence on guns. I own three guns (including an AR15). They've never hurt anybody. They sit on a shelf and collect dust. They are a tool to be used in extreme circumstances in order to protect yourself. I'm not a gun freak, nor do I have a gun fetish. I've been a victim in three felony gun robberies in the past (I was a supermarket robbery hostage, and I also witnessed a murder), and wish that I had a gun then. I've never had any contact with the NRA, so anyone who thinks that I'm controlled by the NRA is crazy.
Aside from that, why does someone want to own a gun? Remember what the Nazis did to the Jews in WW2? The Jews were rounded-up by the Nazis in railroad cars, then exterminated. It was horrendous. If the Jews had guns, then they could have fought back. The first thing that the Nazis did when they took power was to outlaw guns so their opponents couldn't fight back. Do you think that the Jews who were exterminated wished that they owned guns? They might still be alive.
We know that Democrats/Progressives/Liberals want a one-world type government, and they want an authoritarian-dictatorship type of government that wants to dictate how you tie your shoes, and what you eat for breakfast. They want to totally control your life, and eliminate your personal freedoms. They also want to eliminate guns. I wonder why? (Not really!) They want to remove guns from the population so that you are defenseless, and and you can't fight back, and you become a pawn and a subject of some faceless dictator in Belgium, without having any rights. Having no guns in the population means that you are as defenseless as the Jews in Nazi Germany were. You could be exterminated like the Jews were.
There is a reason that out founding fathers gave us the 2nd Amendment, and it's not to use for duck or deer hunting. Citizens were given the right to own guns so that they could fight the take-over of our government by a corrupt authoritarian dictatorship. The 400 million guns in circulation prevents any corrupt politician from thinking that they can subjugate us. We can fight back! Crooked politicians are scared shitless of gun owners. They should be!
YES....we have a gun violence problem now in America. We have a violence problem, period. Part is due to breakdown of the family structure. It's not due to law-abiding gun owners like me. It's due to the mentally ill people, and people who are racists, and people who are criminals. They have other issues that effect them. It's not due to the guns. A racist black guy recently killed a dozen white parade goers in a Wisconsin parade with his car. Muslims use bombs for violence.
The Democrats have long pushed for de-funding the police, and removing the police from our schools. Those are big mistakes which have added to more violence in society. We see more liberal judges who coddle criminals, and Kate Brown has recently released a huge number of violent criminals from our prisons back into society. That won't reduce the crime rate. Democrats have a poor record of combating crime. Democrats aren't really serious about crime, because the biggest cities that they run (Detroit, Chicago, LA, NY) are ridden with crime and violence.
Democrats don't really care about crime. What they really want to do is eliminate your right to own a gun so that you can't fight back, and for me, it smacks exactly of what the Nazis did to the Jews, and it would leave me defenseless to their tyranny. Our forefathers gave me the right to own guns in order to protect myself from crooked politicians, and I won't give it up without a fight. I'm a Jew (and a conservative Republican), and I don't wish to be exterminated by the opposition.
Curt Ankerberg
Medford, OR
I'm curious as to how a term almost every definition I can find emphasizing empathy and concern for others got turned into a pejorative epithet. When did Empathy become unacceptable; when did concern for others, especially those of lesser means become politically incorrect, and why has such a large percentage of our population come to believe that unrestricted possession of weapons designed for killing humans become more important than protecting the lives of children ?
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UK, all allow gun ownership, albeit tightly Regulated. And yes they have had some incidents over the years, but only in this Country has the slaughter of innocents become a weekly news report, garnering attention for a day or so before being replaced by the latest furor over a Kardashians latest misadventure, or one or another "celebrities" divorce or DUI.
We, the People, have the power to change this paradigm, but it's not by reflecting scum like Greg Abbott Dan Patrick or Ted Cruz.
I am disgusted with the country Iive in. I am a first generation American with emigrant parents. My parents escaped Nazi Germany in the 1940’s. They were teenagers when they arrived here, this choice was made by their parents. They too were disappointed with their choice, both were ready to return to Germany but were too old and sick. I’m not especially sick, but am also too old to make that kind of move. But the points made re guns and America are right on. A price you pay to live in the land of the free and home of the brave is a certain potential to be killed by gunfire at any time and place. This is unique to America. If you are young and able, and are disgusted by many of your fellow citizens then vote with your feet. Take your skills and work towards a better civilization elsewhere. It’s pointless here. I would do it if I could.
There’s a popular right-wing misconception that the second amendment gives everyone the right to own any king of gun they want. Not true. For example, you don’t have a right to own automatic weapons.
There are three legal uses for a gun: hunting, target shooting and self-defense. None of those require rapid-firing weapons with high-capacity magazines. Those are purely offensive, intended to kill lots of people quickly. When it comes to public safety, we have every right to impose our will and demand they be taken off the market.
If we were Constitutional Originalists, as many Republicans claim to be, we would insist the only second amendment right people have is to bear the same arms that were available when the amendment was written.
Is it mere coincidence that these mass shootings seem to have begun, and rapidly increased, at the same time that the horrifyingly violent, graphic, computer “games” became ubiquitous among our youth? Isn’t it possible, or likely, that spending several hours per day practicing the killing of others desensitizes at least some of our kids to real humans?
I can’t speak for others, but I’ve witnessed a powerful correlation between computer game regulation by parents and actual violent behavior against said parents. Like screaming insults. Like refusing to obey time limitations they willingly agreed to, in order to “play”. Like serious biting of their parents/baby sitters when their time limit on the computer “games” is reached.
Could be mere coincidence, but I never heard about mass shootings in usa before computer “games” came on the market.
My wife thinks violent television and movies could be contributors. I wonder if the “authorities” have tried to find any correlations, and-if so-what can be done about it.
Handgun rounds are not that powerful; low muzzle velocity due to short (3-4” barrels) is why. According to the FBI, it can take many handgun rounds to stop a determined (or drugged) attacker. Commonly available handguns can hold 15-17 rounds. Limiting the number of rounds in a magazine to 10 seriously degrades the utility of a handgun for self-defense.
People who want a handgun for self-defense and who understand handguns’ limitations will understandably resist government attempts to subtract rounds from their defensive weapon of choice. Allowing violent crime to rise while interfering with citizens’ ability to defend themselves from that crime is not a good political look.
It’s hard to say what causes someone to go shoot up a school. One possibility: the idea is now out there. Most people may not be creative enough to think of doing something like that on their own, but widespread media coverage puts the idea right into their heads.
The gun manufactures have won. Now is the time to sue them. Like creating cars that explode on impact..like the Pinto.
Guns are uninsured. The owner can be broken. Confiscate his holdings. Like the abortion laws anyone who aids the gun man to carry out his destruction is guilty by association. Bring out the $10,000 reward. Find the seller. Find the mother who gave them the money to buy the killing machine. Get daddy who taught the child to shoot. Get the next door neighbor who gave the ammunition for practice. Children turn in your parents . Enhance your college fund.
Anybody whose heart is not torn from listening to the parents of the massacred children has no conscience. We all know it was preventable, but in the U.S. guns are a major religion.
Curt’s comment about the Jews being able to fight back when they were armed rings hollow. Yes they did fight back but were unable to defend or prevent their eventual defeat and capture. The weapons Germany had (tanks, artillery and bombers) completely destroyed the Jewish held areas in Hungary and any where local resistance attempted to make a stand.
I have returned to this column several times since I first read it. I have been very active in Oregon gun control movement for 22 years. I gathered signatures for the ballot initiative to close the gun show loophole and I was in the Oregon Capital lobbying for action on assault weapons when news of Sandy Hook broke. All of which is to say, I know this issue intimately. In the immediate aftermath of Sandy Hook, I swore that I would never give up. Right now, I am ready to give up.
Maybe those of us who understand what guns do should simply rid our homes of them and leave the rest of the country, and their children, to the fates. Maybe we are enablers, like those who perpetually try to rescue, to save, the addicts in our families, unwilling to accept the prescription that they have to hit bottom before they can turn their lives around. That, or die first.
I thought Sandy Hook was the bottom, but I was wrong. Should I simply pray for the grace to accept what I cannot change?
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