Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: How do people get involved with gun control? [View all]flamin lib
(14,559 posts)Like every other school day my Daughter dropped the two boys off at elementary school and then Kate with me. It was 8:20. I know because that meant the boys were on time for class. Three year old Kate and I watched the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN like every other day, she in my lap with her head on my chest thumb in mouth breathing softly.
About nine o'clock the red and white BREAKING NEWS crawler came across the screen. Something about shots fired at a school in Connecticut. In the next half hour the reports solidified into someone inside an elementary school and police are on the scene. I thought to myself, "Shit, some disgruntled employee is taking revenge on the staff for a perceived slight. What an asshole."
Sometime before ten o'clock Chris Jansing from MSNBC is on the scene and coverage is now live. I'm thinking this must be a pretty big deal to have a senior anchor on scene so fast. Kate wants a drink so I go to the kitchen and fix chocolate milk.
When I get back there are reports of multiple injuries and the police are inside the school searching for the shooter. Children are among the casualties. The school is for Kindergarten through second grade and I think, this is one inept bastard to hurt kids while taking revenge on whoever pissed him off!
Over the next few hours the scope of the tragedy became more clear. First reports say the principal and assistant principal are dead and as many as a dozen children are injured or dead. Police are going classroom to classroom. There is video tape of small children running single file holding hands from the school across the parking lot. People in the parking lot are hysterical. By now I'm quietly crying, tears sliding down my face. Kate asks what's wrong. I tell her some bad man hurt little children and it makes me sad. She worries that he may hurt her but I assure her he is far away and I won't let anyone hurt her or her brothers. After all, that's what grownups do, protect little kids. I wonder if I should go get the boys from school but decide not to interrupt their schedule.
Shortly after noon the the police on the scene announce that the shooter is dead by suicide as are six adults and 20 children. Seasoned journalists are openly weeping on air waiting for the coroner to address the press. The parents are held at a nearby fire station where they are reunited with the children who had escaped. By now the parents that haven't found their children know they aren't going to. Professional grief councilors are on hand
The coroner's press briefing is bizarre. The man is absolutely unmoved as he described what they found inside and the next steps in the investigation. Forensic photographers will take pictures of the victims for identification and match bodies to parents. Someone asks about the pictures and he says that his people are really good at what they do and will be able to provide identifying pictures. Toward the end of the briefing someone asks how he can be so unmoved and distant. The coroner says that they're busy right now and that there will be time for that other stuff later.
To this day I cannot get the the last few minutes of those children's lives out of my head. What it must have been like inside the classrooms; the deafening blasts of gunfire in a small room, the screaming, crying and calling for Mommy and Daddy looking to the grownups to protect them as they are shot. I live with that image in my head and can't get it out.
Every year 30,000 plus people die by gun in this country, more than 100,000 are injured at a cost to the economy of $200-260 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS but it all gets shrugged off as just the cost of liberty.
I know that guns aren't inherently evil. I own a dozen of them for fuck's sake. But the idea that any asshole can get one regardless of background, criminal record or mental state is go Goddamn stupid. Do a search on Craig's list for "things that go bang", go online, look at the want ad section of the local paper. Anybody with a couple hundred bucks can get any kind of gun no questions asked in a matter of hours if not faster. Guns that deal death at a rate limited only by the physical strength to carry ammunition.
The pro gun lobby and the people who are frankly gun fetishists to the point of needing treatment seem to "win" every argument. I get so damn tired of the same old arguments that it makes me want to vomit. I swear to God that if I'm close enough to the next fool who says nothing can be done because the gun was bought legally I'm going to deck the motherfucker. That's the damned issue! All the fucking guns that are bought legally by people who have no business with one. Jesus Christ, a guy has a facebook page that says he's going to shoot some niggers but he gets a gun? What kind of background check is that? A convicted wife beater can't buy a new gun but there isn't any mechanism to secure the ones he already has? The NRA thinks it's okay to beat the shit out of a woman and have all the guns you want as long as you aren't married to her? How does any of that make sense?
There is a lot of room for improvement in our system for controlling who gets guns but every time some legislation is passed it has a loophole big enough have an NRA convention in.
So there ya' have it, KC. That's the kind of insane shit that takes someone like me and turns them into a gun control advocate.