Tragedy in Connecticut
How many more times is this going to happen? How many more times are we going to allow this to happen? How many more times are we going to pick up a newspaper or turn on a television and see images like we saw today? Or in Denver? Or in Portland last weekend? Or Columbine? Or Tuscon? Or any of the other examples of our too violent society with much too easy access to guns?
We lost 20 kids and 7 adults today in Connecticut. Their lives ended before they even began. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. A man wearing body armor and armed to the teeth with an assault rifle and semi-automatic pistols walked into an elementary school and shot 26 people (he killed his mother as well as himself). Not only did he kill all those people, he traumatized so many more, like in the picture on the right. It is a terrible tragedy on so many levels.
So I’ll come back to my original question. How many more times is this going to happen? How many more times is this going to happen before either we enact some sensible gun control in this country? Or take Chris Rock’s idea of making each bullet cost $5,000. Either one is fine with me.
President Obama tentatively stuck his toe in the water today as he reacted to this tragedy. He is being much too timid. We need immediate, comprehensive action to control guns.
Our leaders in Washington and in the state houses have an obligation to protect the people from this kind of harm. Kids shouldn’t go to school and not come home because some idiot walks onto the campus and starts shooting. What the hell is wrong with this country, that this can keep happening? That’s a rhetorical question. Everyone is afraid of the NRA.
Well, it’s time to get over that. We have the power to do something about this. It is way, way past time to stand up to the gun lobby in America. The Second Amendment was not meant to give people the means to kill other people like this. We’re not living in the frontier time, when guns were genuinely needed for protection. This is a modern, supposedly civilized society. There is no way ordinary citizens should be able to access an arsenal like so many have lately.
I’ve only scratched the surface of gun control here. I haven’t talked about the mental health component, and the fact that Reagan gutted the mental health system in this country when he was president. Or how offended I am that Mike Huckabee blames the removal of the lord from the schools for the massacres. Please spare us.
America needs to grow up and join the civilized world. It’s time to disarm our citizens.
The World According to Deanna 
Not until the politicians stand up to the NRA. When I heard the first reports of a gunman in a school I thought to myself, I don’t care. Why should I care if nobody else seems to. Each time we are told, “It is too soon. Now is not the time to talk about gun control. Let the families grieve.” Well, people are killed every day, every hour in this country, by guns. With that reasoning there will never be a time for talking about gun control. Praying after the fact will not stop the next time. Waiting until the families grieve will not stop the next time. Only gun control, only taking guns out of the hands of people will stop it. The second amendment was written over two hundred years ago. People had muskets, one shot guns that took a lot of time to reload. If the people who wrote that amendment knew that nuts would be walking around shooting other humans like they were taking target practice at a gun range, I think they would have made their intentions more specific. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms” might have been written, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms, and legs, and feet, and hands……
The Second Amendment was not designed to allow citizens to commit slaughter. We have to do something. If not now, when, exactly? We absolutely have to enact sensible gun control. Now.
I read the names of the victims, mostly children my son’s age (7), who were each shot at close range with a rifle. How in the name of all that’s holy is that even remotely all right?