I read the killer's mother was a "doomsday prepper" survivalist and that she's reportedly the one who taught him to shoot.
It makes no sense to me at all that the "right to bear arms" entitles someone to have what I've seen described as an "arsenal". Don't your rights end where mine begin? Why does your "right to bear arms" trump my right to elementary schools free from this kind of tragedy?
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I think it runs deeper than gun laws and has more to do with how we diagnose and treat the mentally ill.
ReplyDeletethis does _not_ have more to do with "how we diagnose and treat the mentally ill". this has more to do with the ease with which people can stockpile assault weapons and the ease with which unauthorized people can use them.
Deletei'm not open to arguments in favor of such easy access to multiple weapons of this kind. it's beyond the pale. it makes no sense.
whether or not we diagnose and treat the mentally ill in a way that makes sense is a separate issue. i agree with you that it's a serious issue that we should have dealt with long ago.
but in this case, it's the guns and the ease with which they were available to this "survivalist" "doomsday prepper" mom and thru her to her son that were the problem.
A gun is only a tool if mishandled nothing good is going to happen. The reason I focus more on the mental state of the killer is that he could just as easily gotten behind the wheel of an suv and crashed a playground. We need to get to the root of why these things are happening or another troubled soul will just pick a different tool.
Deletean assault weapon capable of this kind of destruction is not a tool like a car or a hammer. it's a weapon with the sole purpose of killing as many and as quickly as possible.
Deletelet's get rid of weapons that can do _this_! there is no need for us to have arsenals of weapons that can do this!
none of our mass murders have been committed by suv-wielding killers: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
hmmm, well that was oddly formatted. odd spacing in the above comment was unintentional, and i'm not sure how i did that.
DeleteI read this morning in the national morning paper here in Sweden that in Australia there were several similar incidents until 1996, when finally the government made severe restrictions to gun ownership. The article is, unfortunately in Swedish and not on the internet anyway, but there are some facts here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia
ReplyDeleteIt hard to argue against the tried and tested.
yes, i've been using australia and a couple of other countries that changed their gun laws in the wake of similar tragedy. i'm not getting very far, and, to be honest, reasoned argument with examples doesn't seem to convince anybody. i get people who say, "but i have the right to have all these guns," and then they point at the mentally ill population and say, "it has nothing to do with guns. if we had better identification and treatment of the mentally ill this kind of thing wouldn't happen." honestly, it's discouraging. i don't understand this insistence on an unfettered right to own arsenals of assault weapons. it boggles the mind!
Deleteand you might find it hard to argue against the tried and tested, but the gun defenders won't try. they will just insist that they're americans and are exercising their constitutional rights. in the face of all these funerals for 6 year olds, it's stunning.
Hm, yes, I see what you mean. Don´t argue, don´t listen, don´t let anyone change my mind. Like talking to a wall. Well, sooner or later it must change, if it keeps happening, heaven forbid.
Deletechange, yes, but not in a good way. now they're talking about introducing legislation to arm teachers. it's insane!
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