It's Not About Mr. Cho, Stupid. It's About Guns
Twenty-three year old Mr. Cho walked into a local gun shop, produced 3 pieces of identification, waited a few minutes for the local constabulary to clear him (He had no previous record.) and walked out the proud new owner of a Glock 9 mm automatic pistol.
What is the purpose of a Glock 9mm pistol?
Fun Fair with the family?
Sports? Amusement? Dinner conversation?
Why is it both legal and in every social way acceptable to buy this kind of killing machine on every second street corner in America?
Why does everyone assume that this kind of business is normal? That this is the definition of "business as usual."
This rant is not about casting blame. But it is about making a point.
Mr. Cho is not the story. He is not even interesting. There are nut jobs everywhere amongst us, waiting to explode. Witness the front page story today about the schizophrenic addict who burned down his mother's house. What are you going to do, blame their parents? Send everyone to Parenting Class? Yell at God for making some people less reasonable than others.
But this is a great opportunity for Americans and Canadians to look at some basic assumptions we share in out daily lives.
The question in this tragedy is not "Why?" All the shrinks in the world can't tell you why, and the ones who claim they can are as delusional as the people they are trying to describe.
The question is "How do we stop facilitating crazy people during their worst moments?"
Now, I have been asked if I approve of the complete abolishment of all guns from all citizens.
No, I do not. That would lead, with terrifying rapidity, to a totalitarian central government.
But I do not want gun shops selling every manner of small and powerful personal armaments on every street corner. Has that desire somehow threatened your rights or your sense of personal safety? Sorry.
The NRA has been quick to argue that, if all of those students and professors, now dead and injured, has themselves been armed, one of them would have killed Mr. Cho right smart. Remember that there are several states in the USA where carrying a firearm is legal and commonplace. The proponents of this "lifestyle" argue that life is quiet in their home towns, because the bad guys know what they're up against.
Great. Pardon me if I don't vacation there.
Asking questions and raising debate about how we live is not casting blame. It is asking questions and raising debate.
I think some guns should be available for some people. Which guns, which people is another, lengthy post.
I do not think that millions of small, deadly personal firearms should be available at every strip mall for all people without a criminal record to buy. I think this public policy leads to deadly consequences. I think the horror of Virginia Tech speaks exactly to this issue.
3 comments:
... the ad infinitum cnn wolf blitzer situation room as many screens as to take away from the message, ask a question but never let them answer america with all the morals gone would sell time to the nra as this is all going on, show it to me over and over again until i go numb and dumber and dumber and want to buy a gun, as you old pal john lennon said mr B happiness is a gun, shoot shoot, excellent post mr B.
The anti-gun-control lobby are trotting out their rhetoric quickly in a pre-emptive strike against those who, like yourself (see also article by Estanislao Oziewicz http://www.theglobeandmail.com//servlet/story/LAC.20070418.SHOOTINGGUNS18/TPStory/International/), are quite reasonably asserting that the availability of guns is the main issue in this gruesome debate. “The anti-firearm fanatics will scream for more victim disarmament…” opines one yahoo. “Rendering everyone defenceless only makes them targets and costs many precious lives.” So that’s my choice? Either I have to accept a bullet-riddled death at the hands of an armed, hormonal reject who hasn’t learned the fine but simple art of releasing his anger alone in the privacy of his parents’ bathroom or I have to take weapons training and carry (Pacino voice) “my leetle friend” around with me at all times. Surely there’s a middle ground, o ye sons of Charlton. Another freak wrote in on Tuesday to our local morning tabloid (of course, where else!) to renew calls for “qualified students” to be armed, that is, allowing “good people with training and a permit to carry concealed handguns on campus.” Holy handguns, Batman, can you imagine?! Wouldn’t you just love to be the bureaucrat tasked with performing the “goodness evaluation” of potential student candidates?
Dear Mr. Timebomb,
Pursuant to the Firearms Act and under the power vested in me by the $2-billion gun registry, I am pleased to inform you that your application to strap a Luger to your jackboot for use on the UBC campus has been approved in principle. However, due to the fact that during your interview you admitted to sometimes hearing voices emanating from the dishwasher, receiving encoded e-mails from the neighbour’s Siamese fighting fish and writing homoerotic love notes on Valentine’s Day to Marilyn Manson, we have decided to limit you to the possession on your person of one fully loaded ammo clip per day and to require that you leave your weapon with the professor during your weekly Sam Peckinpah Film Appreciation seminar. These rules are subject to review on a per-term basis and failure to comply therewith may lead to a temporary suspension of your privileges. etc. etc.
These Second-Amendment morons are morally and intellectually bankrupt. All of their humanity and rational thought is subjugated by their irrepressible, sexually driven desire for personal firepower. They are pathetic.
Hey Pedro and Evan,
Good, sharp writing and comments. many thanks to you both.
Post a Comment