On
14 December 2012, Adam Lanza murdered his mother. His killing spree did not end
there. Lanza confiscated his mother's heavy weaponry and drove to Sandy Hook
Elementary School in Newton, CT. Parents had just dropped off their children
for what was supposed to be a normal Friday. After 9:30 AM ET, Lanza shot his
way into the school using a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle. In five minutes, Lanza
discharged 154 shots in 5 minutes from the Bushmaster. In that five minutes, 20
elementary school students and 6 teachers were killed.
This
is part of a long sad history of America's relationship with firearms.
Columbine High
School,
DC Beltway
Sniper,
Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek, and Sandy Hook are examples of
mass shootings
that have taken place in the United States.
The
American people have had a enough.
We
are tired of burying our
children.
We are tired of the excuses that nothing can be done about this. We are tired
that a small vocally loud minority of people are dictating the debate when the
numbers are on our side.
Over
90% of Americans support universal background checks. 86% of gun owners support universal
background checks
when purchasing a firearm. Gun owners also support background checks for
ammunition purchasing and extended magazines.
The
reason why the shooter in the attempt on former Congresswoman Gifford's life
was stopped: It wasn't a good guy with a gun as NRA's Wayne LaPierre stated in
his speech on 21 December 2012. It was that the shooter had to reload his 30
magazine clip and there was a struggle to stop him from reloading. He had 30
BULLETS in his weapon!
In
the Sandy Hook shooting, the shooter released 154 bullets in 5 MINUTES!
The
NRA, the Alex Jones's, and other gun fetishists can hoot and holler that all
these proposals are an assault on the Second Amendment. Let them. They think
that stockpiling firearms and bullets is somehow a deterrent to another
American Revolution and that they can they can take on the American military.
First...
“There
are these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have
these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.”
And
second comes from "The Daily Show." One of the first episodes after
their Christmas hiatus addressed the NRA and various pro-gun responses to the
Sandy Hook shooting. Among them was conspiracy theorist Alex Jones's interview
with CNN's Piers Morgan where he famously ranted that "1776 will commence again if you try to take
our firearms!" One of the pro-gun viewpoints and among members of
the Texas Legislature to prevent mass shootings is to start arming
teachers.
What
a great idea... Let's give people who are underpaid and overworked firearms.
(#sarcasm #snark)
Jon
Stewart tears apart the notion that any proposed gun control legislation will
lead to the downfall of America with this quote:
“No
one is taking away all the guns. But now I get it. Now I see what is happening.
So this is what it is, their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future
prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present. We can’t even begin to
address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually in reality happening in this
country every year because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of
imaginary Hitler.”
Already
a handful of states (Colorado, New York, and Connecticut) have passed tougher
firearms legislation since the events in Newtown, CT. Now it looks like it is
heading towards the US Senate. Last Thursday the Senate voted
68-31 to allow debate
on major gun legislation reforms. The vote had 16 REPUBLICANS vote in favor of
allowing debate over the 13 Republicans that threatened to filibuster a vote on
allowing debate. It was a cause for celebration because of how dysfunctional
the United States Senate has become. This is going to be a long, drawn out process.
For
their efforts in getting something done, the families affected by the tragedy
have sacrificed their personal comfort. It would be understandable if they
retreated to a private life because their grief was so great. These families
must be admired for the personal courage to step up and tell our country
that we have had enough of a family going through such a horrific tragedy.
I've
heard the detractors. They are ridiculous. "Why
should we make laws if only criminals will break them?" These people, in
other words: "(expletive) making laws."
If
that is your attitude, maybe you need to rethink your job. Maybe you should
rethink serving in government.
For
example, drunk driving fatalities. We had a problem with that in this country.
What did we do? We increased the penalties for drunk driving and lowered the
threshold for driving while drunk from a blood alcohol content of 0.10 to 0.08.
I still remember the drunk driving lecture I got in high school (very, very
graphic film..). During my time in the Navy, I had to sit through drunk driving
lectures. Some programs we implemented was a safe ride program and have a
designated driver when you go out (and believe me, that was true this one
time...). If you had too much to drink, you could call someone to get you
someplace safe. Yes we still had people go to Captain's Mast, but
doing nothing about this issue was not the answer.
We
should at least try to solve the problem of gun violence our country faces.
They deserve a vote.
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