I have been resisting the urge to blog about the recent events in Connecticut, in the school shooting. You've heard more than enough by now without my two cents. But, since the gun control issue has again reared it's ugly head, maybe a comment on that won't be out of order.
First, let me say I am well aware what the opinions of most of you who read this blog are concerning guns in America. My position hasn't changed on that either. As long as you keep blaming guns instead of killers, then you are not going to see true improvement.
Almost all - if not 100% - of the perpetrators of these mass shootings are mentally disturbed, unbalanced, crazy, misfits. loons -- whatever term you care to use. Therefore, the key seems obvious to me: you keep loons from going on the rampage and killing other people, whether with guns, as has happened recently, or with big truck bombs like what happened in Oklahoma. Or drowning children in bathtubs, or gas attacks, or whatever.
Notice I didn't say "keep the guns out of the hands of loons" but rather "keep the loons from going on the rampage." By this I mean identify the loons and keep them away not only from guns but away from society in general. Lock them up. Bring back the looney bins. Commit them. Forget this stupid civil rights attitude that gives loons the right to walk our streets; the right to buy guns with no psycho evaluation and waiting period and no complete background history check; the right to kill people. Nobody can get them all off the street, but we can sure do a better job than we are doing now.
And, while we are at it, let's kill all the lawyers.
Stop the CULTURE of violence: on TV, in movies, in video games. You are willing to take the guns out of the hands of tens of millions of sane people to stop a few loons from going berserk, so why are you reluctant to stop the uncaring corporations from producing TV shows, movies and video games that glorify murder and mayhem?
Can not the majority of kids sort those things out and live a sane life? Sure. But the loons will be influenced. The ones living in a twilight dream world will be enabled and encouraged. What is wrong with keeping our kids and teens minds from being saturated by all manner of bloody violence? We used to censor. Stuff that is commonplace for 11 year olds would never have been allowed in earlier times.
Teachers know which of their students are crazy and at risk and antisocial. SAY SOMETHING! How many of these people (including the Connecticut shooter and the Colorado theater shooter) were known to be "weirdoes" by their peers, antisocial psychopaths? ALL OF THEM! So say something. SAY SOMETHING. Before, not after. And don't expect to not reap the whirlwind if you allow children's minds to be saturated every waking moment with unspeakable violence and the glorification thereof.
Although I am not in favor of unrestricted sales of all types of guns without any safeguards, I also say we should go after the ones who create psychopaths at least as earnestly as you go after the makers and sellers of guns.
If we know that we need to do in order to make changes in our culture and refuse to make those changes, to the detriment of future generations, we are the enemy of those future generations.
