Monday, June 13, 2016

Must We Continue to Mourn

Obama has had to be mourner-in-chief fifteen times during his presidency, and he’s faced the nation from his bully pulpit with eloquence and deep sadness. I believe the sadness has become deeper with each mass shooting, and his frustrated inability to get our Congress to pass sane gun laws. Trump says that “Hillary will take away the Second Amendment”; that line is simply for idiots whose ignorance is allows them to believe what is not possible because no president can add or take away an amendment. The sad truth is that our Know Nothing-Do Nothing Congress refuses to pass sensible guns laws. They tell us that we need to be “protected,” and so children find these unusual toys, shoot other children, their mother or themselves. The Principal in Connecticut had a gun in her office; of course it was of no use to her. Don’t you think that in a state like Arizona, when Gabby Gifford was speaking at a popular mall, that some people in the audience had guns? These people understood that they could not use their guns because they were more likely to hurt innocent bystanders. In fact, most police officers could reliably shoot one person in a crowd. Few are trained sharpshooter. A lady with a large handbag, however, did manage to hit the shooter over the head while he was reloading. Now if only that shooter could not have gotten weapons.

We need to ban the sale of assault weapons to civilians; they are weapons of war, and war has been declared by these mad shooters. No more assault weapons except for    soldiers in war. No cartridges that can shoot many rounds without loading.

And most importantly, we can’t lose sight of the fact that except for 9/11, every mass shooting (and of course 9/11 was not a shooting) has been committed (with very few exceptions by an American citizen. Most were not of the Muslim Faith. Our problem with this love of weaponry and killing is not solved by banning Muslims (a crazy solution f ever I heard one). We must have background checks with a national registry. People register their cars, so what is the big fuss about registering guns? The national registry is very important, and there must be a minimum waiting period. Sale of guns, like automobiles must be registered if the transaction takes place at a gun show, or if a private individual sells or resells a gun. Just like a car. These are sensible laws.

Oh, yes, the discussion of gun control can never overlook the NRA, for the NRA doesn’t want any of it. The only way around that, people, is to vote them out of the pockets of our Congressmen. The NRA is not a sports club for hunters, it is not an advocate for gun owners, it is the lobby for the gun manufacturers. The NRA would like to see every man, woman, and child have at least one gun. Maybe ten. I don’t care if you’re sane, and if you register every single one  (and absolutely no assault weapons).

No other developed nation has the level of gun violence that we have, and the shooters are for the most part unbalanced American citizens, very few Muslims. Don’t let the politicians distract you with hateful rhetoric that doesn’t lead to a solution but becomes part of the problem. The few Muslims involved in home grown terrorism have not made up the majority of the mass shootings, and with few exceptions, the Muslim shooter, such as the Orlando killer, was an American citizen.



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