Another School Shooting

ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING

I notice that gun-rights advocates with the National Rifle Association’s “mind-set” often choose to ignore the ease with which a gun can be used to injure or kill another, which I find to be disingenuous at best and criminally irrational at worst. 

The simplicity and speed with which a gun’s trigger can be squeezed absolutely must be included in any rational analysis of the Epidemic of Violence sweeping across America. 

Whether from uncontrolled anger or criminal plotting, any individual with a gun can wound, cripple, and destroy the life of another in just seconds.  No other tool or weapon is as quick and deadly as this hand-held gun, this merchant of death. 

The bullet travels faster than the speed of sound and can be released on its flight by a slight pull of a trigger mechanism that takes so little strength that even a child can do it. 

A momentary burst of anger in an immature teenager can lead to another teenager’s death.  An armed robber in fear of being apprehended can injure or kill a storekeeper, bystander, or police officer in seconds. 

A disturbed individual suffering from delusional fantasies can open fire in a movie theater, school, church or other crowded venue and stand a good chance of killing a dozen victims or more. 

Gang members battling over turf may slaughter one another in conscienceless manner, along with any unlucky person who gets caught in the cross-fire.  So-called stray bullets from gunfire have killed individuals sitting or sleeping peacefully within their own homes. 

And what is always in the hands of the shooter?  What is the weapon of choice?  A gun, always a gun.  Within seconds the murderer-to-be can aim and squeeze and create lasting, devastating consequences for all the family and friends of the targeted victim, the rippling effects of pain, sorrow and suffering traveling far beyond the immediate tragedy. 

I’m not saying that the Epidemic of Violence is an easy one to cure, but if we are to discuss the matter rationally with the expressed intent of trying somehow to reduce this out-of-control Epidemic, it would be helpful if some people would stop ignoring the ease with which guns make possible all these many, many deaths. 

To say “Guns don’t kill people” is to ignore the fact that guns absolutely do kill people!!  For anyone, including the extreme gun-rights advocates who oppose any and all gun safety restrictions whatsoever, to ignore the ease with which guns are used repeatedly, day after day after day--to injure or kill other human beings, is either disingenuous self-inflicted ignorance or criminally negligent moronic stupidity! 

EVERY TIME THE TRIGGER IS SQUEEZED

IT SHOULD BE APPARENT TO ALL THAT

GUNS DO KILL PEOPLE!!! 

In less time than it takes to read or write the three capitalized lines above, you and your whole family could have been killed by one angry, selfish, or deranged person with a single gun. 

That is our reality and it is not to be cured by NRA slogans of no intrinsic value whatsoever; it won’t be cured by such wishful thinking or by pretending that tens of millions of guns--and the very ease of their availability—has nothing to do with thousands of people dying annually from the deadly use of guns.

To those who still wish to say that guns and bullets don’t kill people, isn’t it time to wake up and assume the mantle of reason given to every adult human being as the greatest gift of all? 

How much longer must we put up with the ridiculous pretense, the mind-boggling denial, that guns are not part of the Epidemic of Violence?  

The ease with which guns can be acquired and the ease with which they can be used to deal mayhem and death, must be addressed as part of any larger effort to reduce and eliminate needless deaths from the midst of our democratic peaceful society. 

This Orgy of Gun Violence is not something to which we must capitulate or accept as inevitable: we have the power and we have the right to take those steps necessary to make our nation and our neighborhoods safe places to live so that we may ALL enjoy the greatest promise our country ever made:

“THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.”