Posted on 02/18/2018 4:37:27 PM PST by cyclotic
This is as close as it gets for me right now. My son Alex is a captain in the Fort Lauderdale. FL fire department. He does not have any school age children yet. But a couple of his first responder friends in the fire company were attending the school which was the latest target of a mass shooting in Broward County where 17 children were needlessly murdered. His friends’ children were not shot but some of their friends were. Yet none of us has to know anyone who was so slain to grieve for these lost children. I didn’t know any of the 20 children murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy either, but it is none the less outrageous that they did lose their lives. Their parents and families daily endure these unspeakable losses and yet something should have been done then and it was not. The incidents of mass shootings are so numerous since then they are mind-numbing.
Politicians have been saying that when such a tragedy occurs, “it’s not the right time to talk about this. We are praying for the victims and thanking the first responders that this was not worse.” They refuse to discuss gun safety. Two weeks later the incident is forgotten and the conversation never occurs. The NRA, gun manufacturers and others who lobby for guns give to millions of dollars to politicians so there is no meaningful conversation about guns. As a result, nothing is done to curb gun violence.
There are no clean hands among the politicians: Sen. Marco Rubio has received $3 million in campaign contributions; Sen. John McCain $7 million. Former Dem. Senate leader Harry Reid was against suing gun manufacturers and so was my hero from 2016 Bernie Sanders who also did not want to make it legal to sue gun makers. These are just a few;
There are so many national lawmakers who are so deeply compromised that they would make a vast rogues’ gallery of money takers who have sold the people’s and children’s safety for the sake of this lobby.
It’s interesting that at a time we are having an opioid epidemic, there are numerous lawsuits being filed against drug companies which have made it easier for these addictive medicines to fall in the hands and bodies of drug abusers. We haven’t heard the argument yet, “drug companies don’t create addictions, people do,” which is true because people take the medicines and drug companies do not physically force their pills and needles into addicts’ mouths and arms. But drug companies enable those who are vulnerable to addiction and they bear some of the responsibility for the epidemic as do doctors who may not be exercising due diligence to prevent opioids from being abused by their patients. These are controlled substances, after all. There are good reasons these are controlled by strict laws with tough penalties.
When is enough gun violence enough? It should already have been. Do we really need more examples of school shootings, church goers gunned down in their own parishes, and nightclubs, movie theaters and outdoor concerts being attacked for this point to be driven home with some finality? This does not even contemplate the daily shootings that are not mass slaughters. How can we even claim to be civilized if we allow this to happen? Do our own children need to be killed in a nearby school to make this point?
It used to be the gun lobby agitated only for the God-given “rights” of shooters to kill animals. “Every man (and woman) is a primordial hunter,” the rationale went and therefore each hunter needs to connect with his primitive instinct to kill something so he has something to eat for dinner. But game wardens regulate hunting and prevent hunters from destroying herds of wildlife with automatic weapons. Not so people: it’s against the law to kill dozens of people all at one time even as it’s against the law to kill just one person. But it’s not against the law to buy a weapon that will kill dozens of people almost all at the same time. That is why it keeps happening.
The background check is the supposed device whereby a person who is not supposed to get a weapon can be denied access to one. But having been doctored by the poliitcians, bureaucrats and gun fanatics, the data base is frequently lacking essential information that would have prevented a tragedy if the information had been entered.
Then there are the gun shows that are exempted from the background check. A big gun show held recently in Bel Air MD may have sold guns to customers who would otherwise have been ineligible to buy these weapons. Does Harford Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler know who these persons are so he can more effectively protect life and property of his constituents?
I’ll bet he doesn’t know who the ineligible persons who were there who may have bought their weapons. Wouldn’t it have been wiser to have this gun show loophole closed?
When I say gun advocates have lost their minds I need only point to my home state of Wisconsin. There recently they had a disabled hunt where disabled people were taken out into the woods and fields in their wheelchairs and given permission to shoot at animals that were not disabled. When I first heard about this I could not believe it. I thought a “Disabled Hunt” was when able-bodied people went into the wilderness to recover disabled people before they became irretrievably lost and died, not that disabled people were trying to disable animals prior to their deaths. Surely disabled people do not want able-bodied animals to suffer too, but I was wrong.
Then Wisconsin legislators enacted a law making it legal for children and babies to get hunting licenses, supposedly under the supervision of their parents. Otherwise I am having a hard time picturing toddlers toddling down the bunny trail shooting guns that may kill themselves or their companions while they are waiting to bag some big game.
I guess I just don’t understand these things. I’d be better off in Australia where they did have a big gun problem but they solved it. We just can’t seem to solve our problem here.
Krist Boardman
Have at it guys. Please feel free to respond to the article at daggerpress.com. It's an online news publication in Harford County, MD (A haven of sanity in Maryland with 70% Trump Voters and this Boardman guy)
They didn’t lose their minds. Demonicrats and RINOcrats betrayed their country long ago.
This was bad, but it was nothing like the 1968 virulent anti-gun hysteria after Bobby Kennedy was murdered by a Palestinian immigrant.
Those who remember those days have learned to PUSH BACK QUICK!
Why has not the libtards demanded their hollywood bretheren stop glorifying guns and killing?
Maybe get all the tv shows, and all the movies to stop shoving guns in everyones faces and you might have earned a shred of credibility.
We dont need a billion cop shows on. We dont need gratuitous violence all over the screens where we are told impressionable children pick up bad ideas from.
So i throw the stupid m-f gauntlet down to the libtard socialist gun grabbers.
Lost me at “Disabled Hunt”...
Hunt for the Disabled !?!
LOL
Oh and these libtards are the same one that go to all these movies and watch all these shows and cluck about how wonderful and prescient they are.
This guy is a lazy journalist.... the second amendment is not about hunting
YES, you are wrong, SO why are you telling people how to live?
Let's compare your lame war analogy to the scenario where progressives demand abortion, gun confiscation and turn us into a banana republic with rubberstamp Soviet-style agencies.
Genocides are problematic while the targets are still armed
He’s not a journalist. It’s a letter to the editor.
He’s still lazy and ignorant.
They Need to Arm-UP the Damn Schools!
The Punk Cowards that pull this crap
would know Adults are In Charge.
Genocides are problematic while the targets are still armed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The whole point of gun control is control.
No, Sir, you have lost yours.
“Gun safety” is just a euphemism for gun control. And not a single gun control proposal they have come up with would do anything but restrict the rights of the law abiding.
Quote of the article, and I agree 100% with the author on all counts (except that Australia had a big gun problem). The only problem here is if we send this bucket dribbling pus-bag there, they might think all Americans are like him, and...I like our Aussie cousins.
On second thought, I would rather just drop him off in selected areas of Chicago or Baltimore to see how long it takes him to change his mind about the 2nd Amendment.
By the way, this is the guy. Big surprise.
He is apparently a liberal ballwasher for the likes of Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and Hubert Humphrey.
The Australian Media set up the mass murder at Port Arthur, then talked down mass murder by shooting afterward.
It is called the copy cat effect, and is well known.
We could start reducing mass murder in the United States, if the Media wanted it done. They don’t. The Media has blood on their hands.
http://www.class.org.au/ideas_kill.htm
You do know that I’m just posting a letter to the editor. I didn’t write it nor do I agree with any one point of it.
I have a long time friend who lives in Australia.
She lives rural-—her nearest neighbor is about 20 MINUTES away.
She is constantly dealing with prowling men of all ages. She cannot have her guns, so she has become the proud owner of 4 of the nastiest dogs she could find.
This is NOT a person who EVER had a nasty dog when she lived in Los Angeles.
That has become the ONLY protection she could get. There is NOT WAY any police officer could show up to help her. She drives 2 hours to go shopping.
“I didn’t know any of the 20 children murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy either, but it is none the less outrageous that they did lose their lives. Their parents and families daily endure these unspeakable losses and yet something should have been done then and it was not. The incidents of mass shootings are so numerous since then they are mind-numbing.”
So tired of wicked people moralizing with “what about the children.” These are the same people who advocate ripping babies apart, teaching children anal sex is cool, and turning children over to perverts for education, foster parenting, and adoption.
Before the sexual revolution we did not have these mass shootings. Before prayer was banned from public school we did not have them. After sodomy laws were struck down and Christians were punished for holding traditional Christian views, these mass shootings have increased.
The ones calling for gun control and disarmament ARE the problem.
“I’d be better off in Australia where they did have a big gun problem but they solved it.”
We’d be better off with you in Australia as well.
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