I've learned something about life. Fear instills paranoia which leads to more fear which leads to greater paranoia which leads to greater fear which leads to even greater paranoia which leads to... you get the idea. When a person reaches the point where he or she cannot tell the difference between something monstrous and something perceived to be monstrous it's time to stop, look, and see that what you fear is not as threatening as you think.
The threat to America is gun violence- it is not Congress enacting effective gun laws. Stop the violence now.
3 comments:
A psychologist once told me it's only paranoia if it isn't realistic. So to worry about terrorist attacks is pretty far down the line for genuine concerns. Likewise even more so to be concerned about needing to fight our own government. But home invasions or carjackings or someone coming into a mall and starting to shoot, those are not so far out there. More apt to kill us, of course, is an auto accident, but still we know crime happens and some attack those they don't even know just because they like to hurt someone.
To me gun violence is a concern and the answer is reasonable gun regulations which says no assault rifles in private hands and likewise no extended magazines. Then reasonable regulations to guy a gun which would have stopped some of these mass killers but maybe not all. If we even had someone like this last guy required to go for an interview since the military kicked him out and he went to a school for those disturbed in one way or another. Just an interview with a professional to assess if the person has danger in their profile.
Concealed weapon permits require a class and filling out a form of our background and then having two recommendations. I have not heard that anyone with a concealed weapon permit has yet to commit a crime but of course, I didn't research it.
Many gun owners favor reasonable regulations as it's not as though we aren't at risk when we walk into a mall or our kids go to school. Doing what we can should be minimal but for now it seems the power is in the hands of the right. Those who consider this a big deal should be working harder for democrats in 2016 as I have yet to see a Republican who doesn't want to end any gun regulations.
It seems that when a nut with a gun starts shooting either: 1. He needs to be shot immediately by a good guy (cop, security, concealed carry person, etc.) OR 2. He should have been prevented from obtaining the gun in the first place.
Both of these solutions have pros and cons. Ideally Solution #2 is what I would like to see happen but we would need to greatly expand our mental health system and probably revise our gun laws.
A problem with Solution #1 is that there have not been enough concealed carry people in our population to stop hardly any of our mass shootings. I don't think there ever will be because most people don't want to carry guns and we certainly can't force someone to carry a gun and learn to use it properly. Of course the major objection to Solution #1 is that a vast increase in concealed carry permits is that crime would increase. Certainly there would be more fatal road rage incidents and many other interpersonal arguments ending in gunfire. Would this be offset by the ability of the concealed carry people to stop a crazy going on a rampage? As I said, I don't think we could have enough concealed carry people to stop the crazies. Also, the number of daily incidents of routine interpersonal arguments ending in gunfire within the population would probably greatly outweigh the number of mass shooting incidents. Maybe I'm wrong but it's an interesting question.
The other way to implement Solution #1 is to employ security forces in every public arena. This would be prohibitively expensive and have its own set of problems.
The legal, monetary and political hurdles in this divided country are perhaps too massive to change anything in one direction or the other.
35,000 people killed by guns in the US every year.
As reported on UK news this morning, if that many people were dying of a virus, there would be serious money being chcuked at the problem to solve it.
35,000. What a waste.
I don't see it ending any time soon though, because the US will never ban guns - too much riding on it.
Very few people actually need a gun. You can have exceptions for those who have good reason (farmers etc). Works over here.
And sure there will always be crazies, but 35,000 dead people says that it should be made a bit harder for them to get their hands on lethal weapons.
Post a Comment