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No. As a society, we became numb to gun violence to the point where the media stopped reporting it on the news. The Newtown shootings reminded us that the probl
by jackalope 14y ago
No. As a society, we became numb to gun violence to the point where the media stopped reporting it on the news. The Newtown shootings reminded us that the problem is real and pervasive enough that it demands a solution. Stories of gun violence are rightly reassuming a place at the top of the hour because of the horrible, devastating tragedies that they are.
This isn't about a liberal agenda in conflict with a conservative conspiracy. I fully believe in and support the 2nd amendment, and strongly feel that any new legislation must comply with it. But this right comes with responsibility. You don't get to shoot through your door because someone turned the knob without ringing your doorbell and hide behind it being an act of self-defense. You don't get to prove your bravery by firing into a group of innocent students from a rival high school. You don't take psychologically troubled individuals to the firing range for therapy and teach them to be efficient killing machines. And if you own guns, you don't leave them on the kitchen table so your seven-year-old can grab it on his way to school for show-and-tell.
This isn't political. We need to shame the idiots who abuse their rights to the detriment of the rights of others. We need to express a sense of outrage when this happens, loud enough for our families and friends to hear it. If that means a continuous stream of these stories on the news, stories of actual life-changing events, is what it takes, then so be it. It's about time the media did its job and reported real news instead of tie-ins to the latest blockbuster the parent company just released.
- jbooth 14y agoYeah, the amazing thing about this gun debate is that, given the drug war, I'm all prepared to punt on prohibition of anything not being worth it... And then I listen to your average pro-gun advocate. Holy shit. Ok, I want everyone except for the average pro-gun advocate to be able to buy a gun.
- mindcrime 14y agoI expect the people you're referring to are anything but average pro-gun advocates. I (a staunch pro-gun advocate) interact with a lot of gun owners and "pro gun people". And I can say that the vast majority are calm, reasonable, level-headed and logical. Certainly as much so, if not more so, than the rabid anti-gunners. They also tend to be better informed in my experience. Are there some really kooky people out there on the pro-gun side? Yeah, and a lot of them are very vocal about their weird conspiracy theories, their racist tendencies, etc. But those people are hardly representative of gun owners in general.
- AnthonyMouse 14y agoI think this is the thing that really makes me hate the media coverage of all this. When I talk to individual gun owners, they're talking about statistics and how the "assault weapons ban" is just a prohibition on cosmetically scary looking guns, etc. But you watch The Daily Show or any given broadcast from anyone with a nominally anti-gun slant and you would think they're all militia members who patrol the border looking for "illegal Mexicans" and need their personal stockpile of three hundred and seven firearms in case Obama "suspends the Patriot Act" to declare martial law.
- jrs235 14y agoCan't agree more. I'm "pro gun" and I own none. Just because I don't exercise a right doesn't mean I want others to diminish it or take it away. And yes some folks are creepy and kooky and unfortunately they are vocal about their guns so people use the label of kooky/crazy for folks that are vocally pro gun which is some sort of logical flaw.
- giardini 14y ago" You don't get to shoot through your door because someone turned the knob without ringing your doorbell and hide behind it being an act of self-defense. You don't get to prove your bravery by firing into a group of innocent students from a rival high school. You don't take psychologically troubled individuals to the firing range for therapy and teach them to be efficient killing machines. And if you own guns, you don't leave them on the kitchen table so your seven-year-old can grab it on his way to school for show-and-tell." Each case you list includes multiple violations of existing laws. How would more laws reduce the likelihood of re-occurrence? "This isn't political." Nonsense, this is the purest of politics: this is literally and figuratively about power and who will hold it.