The broader firearms tragedy
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Gun laws and mental health services must change to reduce the annual loss of life.
A fickle public and failed political leadership often require horrible tragedy to prompt action on chronic problems. The debate over gun control and mental health services that rages in the wake of the Newtown shootings is long overdue, not in response to those rare incidents, but because of dozens of individual gun deaths that pass little-noticed every day in America.
The victims’ families and the community of Newtown suffered terrible loss. The nation mourns with them.
The nation should mourn, too, the tens of thousands of people who die from firearms yearly.
December 23, 2012 - 7:40 AM
You can sandwich your boot-neck policies with all the non-descript mental health issues you wish.
Indeed, along with the gun issue, anyone not fitting some bureaucrat’s (some jerk with a BS [pun intended] degre in psychology) definition of “normal” had better watch their….backside.
Not for nothing but in reality, “anyone not fitting some bureaucrat’s (some jerk with a BS [pun intended] degre in psychology) or some bosses, or some bouncer’s or even some church’s “definition of “normal” had better watch their….backside“. That is just the real world that slaps anyone “not normal” by their definition. Perfectly innocent and decent people have always suffered for not being “normal”. It is often where teens go off the rails to. It is a societal problem that while we have gotten better at it, we still fail, label and harm too many people.
When I was a child, the parents and teachers could literally “beat” it out of you, then they went to lesser punishments but certainly still ostracizing and isolating those “square pegs” who are not sheep (even as I hate that word, it fits).
I fear that in addition to a gun / magazine ban that will be ineffective, we will also institute more of such labeling efforts that will harm kids who would never hurt anyone. Our track record speaks for itself and our prisons and cemeteries are full of our failures.
#2 Egad! Mrs. Saunders! Kept waiting for the punch line. Was your computer hijacked?
Thank you.
“The current approach to firearms in America has failed. It is time to try something new.”
How about trying Constitutional carry?
Awww, now here is a touching story. A man beats his grandmother to death in her bed with a hammer (?). He gets 17 years for manslaughter and is released. Then, it appears that he killed his 67 year old sister and set the house on fire, probably to cover up the crime. But firefighters arrive before the evidence is destroyed so he kills two and injures two more, then kills himself. Another article quoted the man as saying “killing was what he liked to do the best”. Clearly the problem here is GUNS.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/25/16125861-human-remains-found-at-home-of-gunman-who-ambushed-firefighters?lite=
Most of the REAL problems in this picture are a result of how this society has come to view people like this. (Attitudes driven to this point by the ignorance of the left.) They are not crazy or insane, they are simply troubled, probably formerly abused souls who we must care for, support and offer a helping hand. Just think. If the grandmother would have had a firearm at her bedside and killed him, she would not lived beyond that day but three more innocent citizens would be alive as well.
Yep, I’m sure we need to ban guns. And while we are at it we need to BAN the acts of SANE people, which I think we have already mostly accomplished.
Apparently nothing keeps criminals or the mentally ill from attaining the assault weapon of choice so why bother doing anything before a crime is committed?