Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Goat's Song


 
Tragedy, the word derives from the Greek words tragos (goat) and aeidein (song), in drama it has come to represent the development of a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (such as destiny, circumstance, or society) and reaches a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion.  In the common vernacular, it now represents the sorrowful or disastrous conclusion. 

On Friday, 14 December we all became actors upon that stage with the events that unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut.  Now we stand in shock and revulsion discussing what went wrong and what we can do to fix it.

GUN CONTROL

Guns are just one aspect of the problem we seem to face today. Even though I am a libertarian, I am not opposed to the registration, background checks, or waiting periods generally associated with gun control legislation.  Unless you’re willing to go to the lengths of criminalization of possession and/or ownership, gun control has little impact on me.  I can wait three days or thirty for receipt of a gun purchased. 

Guns aren’t even the most lethal mass murder weapon. According to data compiled by Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, guns killed an average of 4.92 victims per mass murder in the United States during the 20th century, just edging out knives, blunt objects, and bare hands, which killed 4.52 people per incident. Fire killed 6.82 people per mass murder, while explosives far outpaced the other options at 20.82. Of the 25 deadliest mass murders in the 20th  Century, only 52 percent involved guns. 


On February 18th, 2003 an unemployed taxi driver walked onto a subway with two milk containers full of gasoline and a cigarette lighter and killed 198 men, women, and children.  This took place where I was living at the time, the Republic of South Korea, a country with exceedingly strict gun control.  Gun control to the point at which if you are allowed a weapon, you are not even allowed to keep your weapons at home, you store them in the local police armory and must sign them in and out.


 
PEOPLE CONTROL 

Guns are not the root cause of the problem.  If the problem isn’t the guns, which are accessories, but the people behind them, doesn’t that raise other questions that we ought to be discussing? 

How do we as a society create a person capable of mercilessly killing 20 small children? 

If we didn’t create him, how did we miss him? 

Even if we had identified him as a person who was at risk early, what could have been done about it?  

If the assigned motive of an argument with school staff is correct, how do we produce a 20 year old member of society so lacking in conflict resolution skills that he resorts to mass murder? 

Forget gun culture, are we a violent culture? Do we embrace and celebrate violence?  And if so, what can or should be done about it? 

Can Anything Be Done About It? 

Gun control is a convenient political axe to grind, but honestly do you think it will prevent these kinds of tragedies?  If laws against murder don’t prevent killings, what makes you think laws against guns will prevent shootings?  It is arguable even whether or not gun control will positively impact crime rates. 
At the crudest level, as Justice Breyer wrote, violent crime in Washington has increased since the ban took effect in 1976. “Indeed,” he continued, “a comparison with 49 other major cities reveals that the district’s homicide rate is actually substantially higher relative to these other cities than it was before the handgun restriction went into place.”
 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/weekinreview/29liptak.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Gun Purchase Control Worked and Failed

The shooter in the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticutt apparently attempted to buy a rifle at a Dick’s Sporting Goods in Danbury on the 11th of December and was denied because he didn’t want to undergo a background check or the waiting period. This is either coincidental, or calls into question the current motive of his argument with school staff on the 13th.


The guns in this incident were registered to the mother, so far to all appearances a fine and upstanding member of the community with guns legally obtained and to all appearances, also legally able to obtain guns no matter how stringent we make the laws.

As a gun owner and gun advocate, I have taken friends and fellow gun owners to task for improper storage,  from a gun lying on a table in front of a window, to guns outside safes in homes with children. Perhaps it is time to address not the purchase but the storage of guns.  Wear it, or lock it, has always been my firm belief. 

GUN STORAGE CONTROL

Here is gun control legislation I can support:  In order to purchase a weapon you must present proof of a place to securely store it.  The container must be GSA certified and must have a GSA certified combination based locking system.  Only the legal owners may have access to the combination, meaning the owers must have passed the required background checks and be legally entiteled to own the weapon.  Underage children who are not legally permitted to own a firearm or who have not passed the required background checks are not allowed access to the storage container.

Massachusetts has a good law, although I would take it a step forward and preclude key based locks:
All handguns, rifles and shotguns must be stored in a locked container or equipped with a tamper-resistant mechanical lock or other safety device. Such weapon shall not be deemed stored or kept if carried by or under the control of the owner or other lawfully authorized user. Primitive firearms are exempt from this storage requirement.
Massachusetts also has a Firearm ID Card (FID) requirement.  In order to purchase guns or ammunition, you must have an FID card.  The requirements for the FID card are completion of a safety course and the passing of a background check. I had one when I lived in Massachusetts and have no objection to the implemenation of the requirement elsewhere. 

 

IT IS NOT THE GUN OR GUN CONTROL THAT IS AT FAULT

I wanted to end this post with the above statement.  If you think stricter gun control laws, other than criminalization of ownership, would have prevented this tragedy you are naive.  Even absent guns entirely,  it is likely this tragedy would have simply played out another way with either a higher or lower casualty count, no one can know for sure.  As a society we need to address the root cause of this problem and others like it, and the root cause is not guns.  Get rid of guns and you might have six dead from knife wounds or forty dead from molotov cocktails.  The problem is inherent in our society and culture, and frankly, I don't have a clue how to go about fixing it while remaining a free and open society.  I know a lot of you will disagree with my perspective on firearm laws and storage, so be it.

But here we are, left with Morton's Fork and Sophie's Choice.

~Finntann

41 comments:

Always On Watch said...

Bath School, 1927

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

Always On Watch said...

For a long time, many households have had guns without "proper storage." But the instances of mass murderers such as that in Newtown have been very, very few.

I grew up in a household with guns -- as did almost everyone else of that era in this location.

So, what's different now?

Well, perhaps it is this: today, thanks to various media and suburban lifestyle, our present society has little experience with death -- up close and personal, including the sights, sounds, and smell of death.

For example, most kids were familiar with slaughtering animals for food -- and saw the slaughter up close.

Another example: most kids when I was growing up got a gun as a gift, then proceeded to kill a small animal (bird, squirrel, rabbit). The kids who did so saw the animal die -- and it wasn't sanitized and/or cartoonish. From that point on, such kids didn't continue to use the gun inappropriately.

Always On Watch said...

If Adam Lanza was on the autism spectrum, how much did that "difference" play in? Quite a bit, possibly, as all autists are not like Rainman. In at least some cases, autists can view people as objects and can also react in bizarre ways because autists have trouble understanding sensory and psychological integration. MOST on the autism spectrum have obsessions and compulsions, not all of which are harmless and most of which are very bizarre -- for example, a fascination with feces.

I don't know for certain, but I suspect that Jeffrey Dahmer was on the autism spectrum because that would explain his early fascination with the innards of animals and, later, his obsession with not being left alone to the point that he was compelled to eat his victims so as to keep his victims always with him.

There may be a fine line between "regular" autism and psychopathy.

Hugh Farnham said...

The hypocrisy of Obama knows no limits. He gushes tears on TV when talking about the victims of the shooting - yet was responsible for sending thousands of illegal firearms into Mexico. Hundreds of Mexicans have been murdered by thugs handling these weapons.

Make no mistake: Fast and Furious was all about this Administration creating shocking firearm smuggling statistics in time for the UN Small Arms Treaty. It was the justification our Gunrunner-In-Chief needed to sign it.

A funny thing happened on the way to the false flag. Border agent Terry was murdered by a (federally protected) thug and this entire operation was exposed. The treaty slipped back into the shadows, unsigned.

Anonymous said...

Mayve part of te answer can be found here

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/are-the-new-generation-of-anti-depressant-medications-contributing-to-school-shootings.html

Liberalmann said...


‎"One failed attempt at a shoe bomb[ing], and we all take off our shoes at the airport; 31 school shootings since Columbine, and no change in our regulation of guns" (John Oliver).

Thersites said...

Smart gun technology is not that far off, and will make moot most new. laws enacted today.

Thersites said...

Lets get a "Solyndra" type grant program going for gun manufacturers. We can waste money as easily as the greenies can.

Silverfiddle said...

Liberalmann: Thank you for reminding us of the stupidity of the Big Government TSA.

Thersites said...

Scape-goats. That's what progressives are searching for... so that they can "escape" reality.

viburnum said...

They escaped reality decades ago

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this post Silver. For days now I've been arguing with people over just the logicality of gun control nuts, but here you've done the proper leg-work to lay out some good facts.

I am sure, however, that gun control nuts will continue to cast aside the facts. The "counter-arguments" usually are as follows:

1. Guns still make it way too easy to kill people.

2. You're a deafeatist if you say we should do nothing. Since we can't stop murder, does that mean we should just give up trying?

Just the other day I made a post about a guy who stole a tank from a National Guard armory and went on a rampage in San Diego. This happened in 1995.

If a man is capable of stealing a TANK from a military installation, what the heck makes people think that getting a gun would do any bit of good if guns were indeed made illegal?

Here's the real issue. Gun Control Nuts are outraged and angry. We're all outraged and angry at what happened, because it was horrifically tragic. We want answers, and we want to know that our children will be safe. But the gun control nuts don't want to admit to themselves that when you look at it, we really are virtually helpless to stop the madness.

They're in denial. You can run through every single scenario of how stricter gun control will not prevent these tragedies from happening, but they will refuse to admit the reality of the situation at hand.

The law didn't stop this guy from bringing guns into a school zone. The law didn't stop him from murdering little children. If the guy is so deranged that he's willing to kill children, what makes anyone think that he would be so opposed to illegally obtaining contraband? A psychopath with SOME sense of law and order?

Probably not.

Always On Watch said...

Jack Camwell said:

If the guy is so deranged that he's willing to kill children, what makes anyone think that he would be so opposed to illegally obtaining contraband?

Exactly.

And Adam Lanza was apparently very intelligent. His sick mind would have found a work-around to any obstacle once the went on his murder binge.

Silverfiddle said...

Jack: Thanks for the kind words, but Finntann wrote this post, not me.

I agree with you. Some people do not want to face the fact that we are fallen, and some among us are hell-bent to do terrible things.

We have sensible laws in place, Connecticut had them in place...

It is disturbing to me to see people rush to turn over their rights to the Feral Beast. The 4th Amendment is just a fond memory now. Millions of us cheered when George Bush took sledge hammers and dynamite to it.

Does the state serve us, or do we serve the state?

Silverfiddle said...

Having said that, I understand the urge from people who hate guns. This is a very emotional issue.

For this reason the founders designed our constitution. Unfortunately, it is no longer a firewall against passions of the day, so anything could happen now...

For anyone who thinks cracking down on guns will help, I simply direct their attention to Chicago.

10 murders a week in Chicago, which has very strict gun laws.

We are a screwed up society, and no amount of laws will save us.

Craig said...

Smart gun technology is not that far off, and will make moot most new. laws enacted today.

Just relax people. Smart guns in the near future will shut down when used in nefarious acts, much like women's baby making parts when they're raped.

Finntann wrote a thoughtful piece and it didn't take long for it to devolve into partisan finger pointing.

I've long been an advocate of sensible gun control but I'm not so naive to think that that's the magic bullet (sorry). It's a complex problem and we'll never solve it, but are there things that will minimize it? Identifying and getting treatment to those who need it. The glorification of violence in 'entertainment'. Before you jump on Hollywood liberals, it sells. Free enterprise.

Someone bent on killing a lot of people will find a way. Easy access to heavy firepower and high capacity magazines seem to contribute to the lethality and frequency of the carnage. I've seen a couple references to the Bath School tragedy. If the point of referencing this is that it wasn't gun related, point taken. Incidents like that are few and far between. We're dealing with mass shootings every other month.

America has a long tradition of gun ownership and, a not so well known, a long tradition of gun control. The Founders banned gun ownership to freed slaves and law abiding white men who didn't pledge loyalty to the Revolution. One of my favorites, Wyatt Earp cleaned up Tombstone by banning guns. They weren't allowed to carry, subject to a $25 fine if they did. Anyone entering town was required to leave their guns at the sheriff's office and they could collect them when they left town.

I don't know the answer. Finntann started a reasonable discussion. I think most gun owners would agree with him and not find sensible precautions onerous. Unfortunately, the NRA would excommunicate him for apostasy.

Z said...

Excellent thoughts, Finntann...thanks.

I'm stunned that anyone found the comments off base; to mention Fast and Furious is forbidden?, ideological? We must deal with the truth, even if it shines harshly on Obama. the truth is the truth.

The truth here is that there's no easy fix and anything we do will look like a good try until the next whacko finds a way to kill people; with knives or bombs or whatever his or her ingenuous mind can conjure up to get around missing his gun.

Evil people exist. No liberal/progressive laws can change that. Ever.

Silverfiddle said...

Craig: Good comments, but there is "partisan finger pointing" going on on all sides.

Craig said...

but there is "partisan finger pointing" going on on all sides.

Agreed.

Thersites said...

There have been three great Greek tragedians, first Aeschylus, then Sophocles, and finally Euripides. Euripides was the last. Why?

If you read Euripide's work, you notice a progression in his style. He starts much like Aeschylus and Sophocles, but in one of his final plays, "Iphigenea in Taurus," the protagonists "survive" the tragedy, and it ends like a fairy tale, with all living "happily ever after".

Sorry America, but despite what our modern politicians promise, none of the truly GREAT stories about actual life end with the tag line, "and they lived happily ever after."

As Ben Franklin told us, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." He wasn't just telling us "fairy tales". And those who do, will end up missing from the great pages of history.

Finntann said...

@For a long time, many households have had guns without "proper storage. What's different now.

AOW, I know you certainly arent advocating leaving guns lying about, but stop and think for a second... did you have to lock your doors at night back then?

It is a different society and a different culture today then it was then.

There is a danger here, pointed out by Craig and Liberalmann:

"The Founders banned gun ownership to freed slaves and law abiding white men who didn't pledge loyalty to the Revolution. One of my favorites, Wyatt Earp cleaned up Tombstone by banning guns."

""One failed attempt at a shoe bomb[ing], and we all take off our shoes at the airport; 31 school shootings since Columbine, and no change in our regulation of guns"

It is an easy argument to make, that we would could all be made safer by restricting restricting rights.

How much safer would we be if cops could stop and frisk anyone on the street? Wouldn't searching people before entering or exiting a mall reduce crime?

So Wyatt Earp banned guns in tombstone, and cops used to stop black people in white neighborhoods. Just because something was done in the past doesn't make it right.

Craig's quote is the lead in to a WaPo article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/11/AR2010061103259.html

That while arguing for more gun control (for different reasons - tracking as opposed to control) also goes on to admit that "91 percent of homicide offenders had a prior arrest record" and that "500,000 guns are stolen each year".

Which is why I've put for the argument for storage controls as opposed to further sales controls.

Cheers!

Finntann said...

Advocates for gun control often point overseas at countries with restrictive laws to illustrate their perceived effectiveness.

Let me relate an anecdote to you from the time I spent living in England.

I came home from work one evening and turned on Sky News. The story that was headlined was a horrible and tragic incident that took place on one of their Motorways. You see, a Bobby had pulled over a motorist and when the driver got out of the car, he decked the Bobby with one punch, jumped in his car and sped away.

I can recall laughing... thinking somebody punched a cop and it made the evening news? A cop can get shot in the United States and it will maybe make the local news and possibly some surrounding towns... but not the national news.

Sure enough, this story featured prominately on the news for two days until this vile criminal was caught.

There are significant societal and cultural differences between nations that lead to what are known as "substitution effects" in studies. A study by the Canadian Journal of Criminology found "there was no significant correlation between national gun ownership rates and the total number of people murdered or the total number who killed themselves"

http://rechten.uvt.nl/icvs/pdffiles/Guns_Killias_vanKesteren.pdf

Studies have also found found that gun control laws generally have no detectable effect on total suicide rates.

Rich, et al.: "Guns and suicide: possible effects of some specific legislation" Am J Psychiatry 1990; 147:342-346.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=166630

Honestly, I believe that gun control legislation is pissing in the wind. You will reduce the rights of citizens while have little to no effect towards your desired endstate of reduced gun violence.

Cheers!

FreeThinke said...

Thanks, Finntann, for a sober, thoughtful, well-researched examination of this emotionally-charged event.

I agree with most of your conclusions one. Please allow me to explain:

As an adult I do not own, and never have owned, a handgun. As a child I had an air-powered pellet rifle used strictly for target practice in the safety of our basement. At summer camp I spent time on the rifle range with other boys shooting at paper targets with with a 22-caliber rifle. I was actually pretty good at it without ever being anything special.

In high school I completely lost interest in guns, and have never looked back. Killing innocent animals for sport -- more euphemistically known as "hunting" -- has never appealed to me, but it never occurred to me to make a career of protesting against it -- or anything else.

HOWEVER, now that I am a senior citizen and live alone in a large, unusually well-furnished home, it has occurred to me that it might be a good idea to purchase a gun and take a few lessons on how to use it to protect myself in case intruders should decide to break in.

Now here's our point of disagreement:

What earthly good could it possibly do me to have my gun locked up tight in an officially sanctioned container requiring me to work a COMBINATION LOCK in order to access it?

Once aggressive thieves, vandals or maniacal killers enter a house it's usually only a matter of seconds before they assault their victims.

IF I decide to buy a weapon

1. I would never ADMIT to owning it upon inquiry

2. I would not hesitate to SHOOT TO KILL anyone who dared cross my threshold without my express permission.

The idea of criminalizing ownership of a possibly effective means of defense in a society where so many have been raised to be MORAL IMBECILES without heart or conscience strikes me as CRIME, itself.

Without the extreme permissiveness foisted on us by the machinations of Cultural Marxists and their ignorant, perversely-conditioned disciples it's unlikely we would ever have been subjected to the cultural degeneracy and appalling lac of good taste and sound judgment that plagues us today.

You and I have crossed swords over the issue of "censorship" before, and I have no wish to revisit that argument, but in my view the root of the problem is not to be found in anything PHYSICAL. Instead this proliferation of rotten behavior is directly attributable to the free, unfettered dissemination of MENTAL, MORAL, SPIRITUAL and CULTURAL POISON accompanied by PLAUSIBLE BLANDISHMENTS wrapped in SEDUCTIVE packages all in the name of DOING GOOD.

I'll let you decide how best that might be fought, but FOUGHT it must be.

I'll leave with this thought: I do not believe "the people" should have the "right" to advocate manifestly SUICIDAL policies. There have to be some limitations on our "right of self-determination" if the majority have been bamboozled into believing it wise to GIVE UP that RIGHT.

Yes. It's practicing good governance is the moral equivalent of an endless walk on a tightrope over a bottomless pit.

The Best of the Season to You!

~ FreeThinke

FreeThinke said...

I said something here yesterday related to the Newtown Massacre that, I think, bears repetition.

"Whenever something dreadful happens, we have a clear choice:

"Either we succumb to anger and resentment and live in bitterness - OR - we can make a determination take joy in what may be left behind and carry on with hope we may yet build a better future in the time we have left.

"Grief at a time like this is certainly appropriate for the victims of Friday's atrocity, but the tendency to WALLOW in it and let it SPOIL our OWN lives is pernicious and should be avoided at all costs.

"Wallowing in the muck and mire is for SWINE. Human beings were made for much better things."


MERRY CHRISTMAS!

~ FreeThinke

Finntann said...

@What earthly good could it possibly do me to have my gun locked up tight in an officially sanctioned container requiring me to work a COMBINATION LOCK in order to access it?

I never said that. The weapon needs to be locked up and put away, or under your immediate personal control.

You'll agree that if you're in the living room and the gun is upstairs in the bedroom when someone kicks down your front door...it is pretty much useless?

If you want to sit in a chair with the gun on a table beside you, that's fine. I think you may agree that having them scattered about the house, stuffed in seat cushions is probably a bad idea, although at home without children I couldn't object too much, if you were present in the house.

I would say leaving them scattered about the house stuffed in seat cushions, hidden behind pillows, and sitting in drawers while you go to the mall is fairly stupid as far as gun security goes. A burglar can and will toss your house.

Cheers!

Ducky's here said...

You bring up a very useful outline of proper storage which is never mentioned in these discussions. We don't know how his mother had her firearms stored but it can be assumed he had pretty easy access.

It would be very beneficial to keep the conversation on that level rather than going into useless blather about Fast and Furious.

But I can't get past one sentence - "Wear it, or lock it, has always been my firm belief."

Why do you want to wear it? And let's face it, you wear it because you WANT TO not because you have to.
We can cut through all the Red Dawn dog poop. Why do you want to wear one?
Bottom line, you want to but you don't need to.

I can't accept the people who claim the answer to this problem is more guns. Arm teachers. It's absurd.

Pretty soon the ladies who lunch will be given their choice of seating in the strapped or not strapped section.

Enough, why the hell do people feel the need to wear one.

Constitutional Insurgent said...

"Bottom line, you want to but you don't need to."

Ducky...you never need it until you need it. Nick Meli never needed it until he went shopping at Clackamas Town Center least week. Thanks to him 'not needing' it's quite fair to say several more people are alive today.

Ducky's here said...

The friend and baby hit the floor. Meli, who has a concealed carry permit, positioned himself behind a pillar.

"He was working on his rifle," said Meli. "He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side."

The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.

"As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them," he said.

Meli took cover inside a nearby store. He never pulled the trigger. He stands by that decision.

------------

Sounds as if the perps rifle jammed.

At any rate there is no instance of a bystander stopping one of these mass slaughters in 30 years or so.

No we could discuss the merits of escalating this with more people carrying but it can't be discussed with the fringe right blowing so much freaking smoke out their collective ass.

Constitutional Insurgent said...

"Sounds as if the perps rifle jammed."

Irrelevant. Meli was ready.

"At any rate there is no instance of a bystander stopping one of these mass slaughters in 30 years or so."

You couldn't be more wrong. Here's but a partial list:

http://www.volokh.com/2012/12/14/do-civilians-armed-with-guns-ever-capture-kill-or-otherwise-stop-mass-shooters/

Z said...

Fast and Furious here is relevant...SO relevant, if one would just look at the facts.

I personally feel hundreds of innocent Hispanics killed because guns were made easy to get (not counting the gangs, etc.) is as bad as 20 American children. Maybe it's just me.

Finntann said...

@Why do you want to wear it? And let's face it, you wear it because you WANT TO not because you have to.

Ducky, I live in the woods, more often than not, when I wear it, I need it.

I have been stalked by mountain lions and have walked up on foraging bears. I had a bear follow me around a lake while fishing. Fortunately, we all survived the encounter.

In the bear at the lake incident, there were three of us fishing, two of us armed. The bear followed us about a mile and a half, and we could have easily justified shooting it, as far as anyone else would ever know.

Why didn't we shoot the bear? Because we're not the stark raving lunatics many on the left like to paint us as. The bear never approached closer than about forty yards and never threatened us, it just followed us. It was simply curious, perhaps a little hungry and perhaps attracted by the scent of trout.

I don't carry all the time, and when I do, I can guarantee it is dictated by circumstance not desire. When I carry, I carry openly (the luxury of an open carry state), I generally have no need of concealment, except for Denver which prohibits open carry.

As far as concealment goes, I know people who always carry... of those people that I know who carry concealed, they do it out of deference to others. They have no desire to make other people nervous or attract undue attention to themselves. There are too many 'liberal' gun nuts out there who get the vapors at the sight of gunmetal and chrome.

Cheers!

Silverfiddle said...

Ducky's false "want versus need" canard is irrelevant. Each human being has a natural right to life, liberty, and property. A corollary is having the means to protect them.

Want or need has nothing to do with it.

Ducky, do you really need those free speech rights?

Progressive, you don't believe in individual natural rights. Big Government uber alles.

Finntann said...

@Enough, why the hell do people feel the need to wear one.

Because no amount of words on paper has ever stopped anyone bent on mayhem, nor has a law enforcement officer thirty or forty minutes away.

We don't all live in cities... although I might add, a law enforcement officer five or ten minutes aways is just about as useless. What was the response time in Connecticut? Ten minutes? And the perp suicided when he heard them arrive? That's what's front page on MSN right now.

Jersey McJones said...

I have always had a hard time with the notion of a right to property. I'd love to hear that "right" fully explained to me by someone on the right.

JMJ

Silverfiddle said...

I'll come with my gang and take your house and everything in it from you, and then maybe you'd understand.

Ducky's here said...

Well here's the way it will go; the left will say we have too many guns and the right will say we have too few.

There will be speeches and meetings and these shootings will continue to be a fact of American life.

FreeThinke said...

"... no amount of words on paper has ever stopped anyone bent on mayhem, nor has a law enforcement officer thirty or forty minutes away."

Yes sir! And that's all that really needs to be said right there.

Thank you.

~ FT

FreeThinke said...

Up the crag in the screaming wind
Naked and bleeding I fought blind.

Then I moved toward The Eye of the Sun.
Past the cromlech* I found a gun.

Then, I strayed in the cities of men;
In the home of my love I found a pen.


~ Anonymous
______________________
*cromlech -- an ancient circle of stones used in long-forgotten rituals by primitive tribesmen. Stonehenge is the most famous cromlech of them all.

skudrunner said...

We can all sleep well because our elected crooks will come up with a bill modifying gun control. It will be put together quickly, accomplish little and his leaderless will sign it into law. They will puff out their chests make speeches and say the are the protectors of the little man.

They have an excellent track record of this type of behavior with dodd/frank, tarp and obamacare so they will just be doing what they do best, little action, lotta credit.

Twenty years ago I would never think of carrying a firearm, now I never leave home without it.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The liberal bed wetters screaming for gun prohibitions need to go take a time out.

MathewK said...

"Gun control is a convenient political axe to grind, but honestly do you think it will prevent these kinds of tragedies?"

Not the point anymore, these days most out there don't give a flying f*** about actual results or facts, it's all about feeling good or safe in this case.

Just you watch, gun control will be sold by that bastard as the solution to your problems, his bitches in the media and elite will blast it ad nauseum and those who dare to oppose the further shredding of your rights will be smeared and vilified as child-murdering bastards.

And when they're all done raping you, they'll announce with a straight face how much they care about you and your children.

By the time the next mass shooting happens despite their gun control, it'll be too late, more stupid sheeple will be convinced the pro-gun lot are the problem and more whoring out of your rights and precious gifts handed down by your founding fathers is needed.

I hope there are enough of you remaining with the brains to see this coming and stop the bastard anyway.