If you’ve never considered gun control, maybe the fact that a madman killed at least 32 people this morning at a quiet college campus will convince you. I agree with the old adage that guns don’t kill people, people kill people…however, guns make it a hell of a lot easier. If the United States had rational gun laws, the perpetrator of this massacre wouldn’t have been able to do this. Of course, I know that young people dying needlessly isn’t going to convince everyone that our easy access to guns is insane. When the President heard about the rampage at Virginia Tech, this was the reaction.
“The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said
Of course, this is the same President that doesn’t mind sending other young people to get maimed or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to enrich himself, his family, his friends, and the corporatocracy.
This mornings shooting spree is the second deadliest rampage in American history and the largest mass killing on an American college campus. Our sympathies and condolences to the surviving families.
cd
I am conflicted on this one. Machiavelli said “there is no argument between and armed and an unarmed man”. That means, before you can argue with an armed man, you are dead.
I think guns should be very hard to get, that people should be evaluated very carefully if they want them, and be sent to extensive training, and a lot of that training should involve how to keep your gun from being taken away from you and used against you as well as the main course of how to use it responsibly and effectively.
The freedom to carry a deadly weapon must be reflected in the obligations entailed in the responsibility that freedom demands. That means a ton of hard work is involved.
But after people pass through all the qualifications, and continuing education, I think they should be obligated to carry their weapon at all times, or at least as much as possible.
If a single person had been trained and carrying, they could have made an enormous difference in the Virginia Tech situation.
There are real risks and real rewards in this world, and gun control is meaningless to criminals. We’re either a country of idiots or we’re not, but I’d certainly prefer to go down fighting than lined up like a lamb and slaughtered.