Friday was so strange. It started off terrible. I was knee deep in work issues, and I get e-mails from my sister and partner. “So sad what happened in CT” and “All those kids in CT.” Huh? I was dealing with work stuff, so I didn’t hear. Then, I read about the tragedy. 20 children and 7 adults killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT, by a gunman who then killed himself. Ugh. Wasn’t there just a shooting in an Oregon mall?
God help us. What can we do to stop this? I’ve heard it all over the weekend. Conservatives, like Representative Louie Gohmert of TX, have said that more guns are the answer. He told Chris Wallace of Fox News,
“Chris, I wish to God she had had an m-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out … and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids”
Liberals, like Michael Moore tweeted:
“The short term solution? A law immediately banning semi-automatic weapons & mega-clips. Must have license to own gun. Must pass mental exam.”
Honestly, I don’t know what the answer is. If the Principal was armed, it doesn’t mean that she could have taken him out. And if we ban semis and mega clips, it doesn’t mean they won’t be sold. I see a very profitable black market emerging.
All I know is that the whole thing depresses me. I worked as a sub, and I remember doing those lockdown drills. You lock the door, turn off all the lights, and close the blinds or draw the drapes. It was all very creepy. You just pray you never have to do it for real.
My mind doesn’t want to go to these dark places anymore. It’s really making me hope the Mayans were right. I think the entire world needs purging, and Friday sounds like a great day to do it.
Spinny Liberal 
December 17th, 2012 at 2:35 AM
There is no easy answer to this and in this particular case it wasn’t a matter of a mentally deficient person buying assault style guns himself. They were already in his mother’s house where he was staying. She had them, it appears, because she was a target shooter enthusiast and was raised with guns on a farm as a child. The problem here seems to be how did her son, who had Asperger’s Syndrome, get his hands on three of them so easily along with the bullets?
Adding more guns in to the population does not guarantee to be a solution to this but simply puts more guns out there that can wound up killing more innocent people. Had the principle had a gun in her desk to pull out and blow the shooter’s head off as Rep. Gohmert fantasized would likely not have happened here because she was in another room when Lanza came through.
We do need to reduce the number of weapons, especially assault style weapons that people own in their home and the ability to shoot more than 6-7 rounds at a time before having to reload. These are sane approaches to gun control and limits no one, who isn’t mentally competent, to own a gun.
I’ve got a post coming out later this morning that addresses these concerns Cheryl and will make a suggestion on how we can reduce these types of mass shootings by focusing more on the mental health problems of potential gun buyers. It will of course consist of spending more money to locate these problem people but not to exert some energy in this area is to simply ask for it to happen again, IMO.
December 17th, 2012 at 11:49 PM
I have no idea why she would teach her child, who was obviously *off* how to shoot. And a gun safe would have been appropriate.
I read your post, and I like the idea of references – people vouching for them. I see the NRA fighting it tooth and nail.
I’m hoping this time there will be some meaningful change.
December 30th, 2012 at 3:56 AM
Larry,
The art of contradiction truly belongs to you, my friend. You say there is no easy answer, but then explain that a reduction in weapons is necessary. Nice.
You then talk about the necessity of focusing on the mental-health problems of potential buyers, seemingly ignorant of the reality that Adam Lanza tried to buy a weapon but was denied!
You want to ban, ban, ban. Yep! Let’s ban everything, Larry. And once we get rid of guns, let’s ban kitchen knives if they start becoming the weapon of choice. Oh, wait. England is trying this.
When are you people going to realize that the problem isn’t an abundance of weapons, but a decaying society? As a nation, we glorify the slaughter of unborn children as a “civil right”; we have kicked God completely out of our schools; we normalize every perversion under the sun; and we applaud violence on the silver screen.
Is it any wonder that mass-shootings have become somewhat the norm? It shouldn’t be. There is no objective morality anymore, Larry. Remember? It’s relativism now, baby!
Maybe one day liberals like yourself will finally realize that there are consequences to your feel-good, leftwing notions.
December 17th, 2012 at 11:54 AM
I understand that the kid’s mother kept all these guns because she believed in being prepared for the economy to collapse or terrorists to invade or whatever scenario she painted in her head. Which leads to the supreme irony that she was shot in the face by her son in her home. And leads to the analogy to the United States today, shipping violence all over the world to keep it from getting in the door, while the real dangers, and I don’t mean these random mental cases, are right here at home. To quote a possum, ‘We have met the enemy and he is us.’
December 17th, 2012 at 11:52 PM
Isn’t that the craziest part? The survivalist didn’t survive.
December 18th, 2012 at 9:38 AM
There is no part of the entire affair that isn’t crazy on some level.
December 24th, 2012 at 4:33 AM
Off topic. When I saw this one, thought of you. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/mitt-romney-no-desire-president-tagg-says-191236665–election.html
Meanwhile, Happy Holidays to you .. and hope you can stop by the party.
December 27th, 2012 at 4:41 PM
How many mass shootings have to occur and how many innocent people have to be slaughtered in a single year before America actually does something, no matter how insignificant, about gun control?
How many Americans must die before folks actually read and comprehend the 2nd Amendment (forming well regulated militias) as opposed to treating it as a blank cheque to solve all your problems with weaponry?
December 27th, 2012 at 5:35 PM
To answer your questions…: Lots.