Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Family Feared Texas Shooter

When these people used to get their 15 minutes of fame, they were called "loners."

Now the term du jour is "ticking time bomb."

The tragedy of missed signals, yes, but don't you wonder how many dead police officers and civilians it will take before we will stop making it child's play to get one's hands on military-grade weaponry?

But as I said after the Aurora, CO shootings, and before the Sikh Temple carnage, the problem is that gun access in the country is way too easy.

These massacres bring concern for victims, but no remedial controls: the Aurora shootings come but five years after a higher death toll in a mass shooting at Virginia Tech, and Colorado did not toughen its gun laws after the Columbine school killings not far from Aurora.

Few political figures in either party will take on the NRA. We've got bi-partisan political cowardice, and the result is gun access for lunatics.

We need a mass movement along the lines of Occupy Wall Street to get things started towards reasonable controls on gun ownership, or we're only closing in on the next Aurora, let alone the less-publicized daily gun mayhem happening across the country.




3 comments:

Reagan's Disciple said...

James,

Be honest. When you say tighten gun laws, don't you really mean "ban and confiscate."

Let's call a spade a spade. All of these killers bought guns legally. The only way to stop them is to ban and confiscate.

James Rowen said...

I never said "ban and confiscate." As you know.

I have supported limits on magazine. Longer waiting periods.

If the guns were bought legally, the laws have too many loopholes.

Be honest.

Reagan's Disciple said...

What loopholes would need to be closed? There was no criminal history and no documented mental disorders by the aurora or Sikh shooters.

Owning a firearm is a constitutional right. It seems as though you want to put tight restrictions on this right, yet complain that simple requirements showing an ID to vote are cumbersome and unlawful when applied to other rights.

Using your own arguments and approach, it seems as though people should be able to purchase a gun without showing any form of identification.