Saturday letters
Del. Onzlee Ware and guns in today’s letters to the editor.
Pick of the day: America has hit bottom with gun dependency
The nation’s family is mounting an intervention. Nothing less than a concerted effort born of outrage will produce change.
Dependency on guns is like dependency on alcohol. Problems caused by it are minimized. Rationalizations defending it strengthen even as its damage mounts. Approaches by concerned loved ones are actively resisted. Loved ones then either shrink back, intimidated, or find love’s courage to risk the wrath, to keep holding up truth’s mirror.
As long as denial prevails, nothing changes and the situation worsens. Until a sufficiently painful bottom is hit, the great reversal back toward sanity cannot begin. Every recovering addict understands this.
Citizens, awakened by carnage intolerable and recognizing the power of outrage and numbers, are mounting an intervention. They are risking wrath by holding up a mirror to the insanity. They are insisting that their elected representatives truly represent them and overcome fear of the gun lobby on behalf of common sense and innocents slain. More power to them. May their numbers increase.
CHARLIE FINN
FINCASTLE
January 19, 2013 - 7:34 AM
Yesterday I found out that an acquaintance and Facebook friend of mine was a Sandy Hook “Truther” … that is, someone who insists that either the Sandy Hook killings DIDN’T take place, or that our own government actually orchestrated the slaughter of 20 beautiful six- and seven-year-olds as an excuse to confiscate everyone’s guns.
This particular (ex) Facebook friend of mine claims the latter, and he pointed me in the direction of a YouTube video created by one Ken O’Keefe, who purports that the Sandy Hook massacre was actually a sinister “psy-ops” ploy by the government.
How does one possibly argue with this kind of lunacy? It would be easy to assume that if you just ignore it, it’ll go away. But in this age of YouTube videos and one-stop-shopping websites for conspiracy theories like InfoWars and WorldNetDaily and FreedomWorks, such nutty ideas DON’T go away. They go VIRAL.
Other gun nuts are predicting civil war and armed revolution if the government passes so much as ONE new gun control law; how does one counter such threats? Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro predicts a “tyrannical” government will arise in the U.S. in the next 50-100 years; how does one argue against such prophecies?
What the HELL is going on???
Regarding the letter from Mr. Hogan, as I’ve pointed out previously there is actually a state law that says if you turn your guns in to the police and they’ve not been used in a criminal way, the police have to turn around and re-sell them at auction. Turning your guns in to the police does not remove them from the street.
It would be nice if the editorial board had either pointed that out in Mr. Hogan’s letter or if they could print a correction to that effect.
@1 Chuck, out of curiosity, was your friend very religious? I suspect religion has a lot to do with our present-day collective lunacy.
FWIIW, gun buy-back have been used for years and are still being used in major cities — w/o any documentation (that I have seen), which supports the notion that violent crime is reduced in any significant way.
Scott M,
I believe this is what you are referring to:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+15.2-915.5
Chuck A #1, what is going on is that there are people determined to destroy this nation rather than let progress or common sense solutions happen. They are literally willing to say or do anything rather than let the Obama administration gain ground. They are getting desperate and dangerous IMO and several people who are “paying attention” have even asked me to dial my own passion back. It is becoming frightening the grip some have on a large swath of this nation. There is a pattern.
@5 Thanks Jack. That’s the one!
Re: Sandi Saunders @ 4:04 pm
Or save the nation from authoritarians (and I am not focusing on the POTUS)?
#6 (And some of them have guns).
Just can’t argue with “progress or common sense”.
#6 – “They are literally willing to say or do anything rather than let the Obama administration gain ground.”
Such as Obama himself using bogus information in his quest to disarm citizens?
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/17/the-40-percent-unchecked-gun-lie/
LOL, “save the nation from authoritarians”! I do not know what is sadder, that you say it, or that you think that is what you are doing.
Almost all of them have guns Jim Lucas and they would argue with a rock.
“Human Events”? Really? I rest my case.
http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/gun-show-loophole
http://smartgunlaws.org/tag/president-obama/
http://www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/reports/no-check-no-gun-report.pdf
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/25/michael-bloomberg/mayor-michael-bloomberg-says-40-percent-guns-are-s/
Given the prevalence of unchecked purchases, 40% is probably low.