Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Appetite For Destruction

Two years after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, Connecticut's governor doubts that his state's legislature has the "appetite" to take on any more of the recommendations set forth in a report issued last Friday. That doesn't mean he thinks his state hasn't made any effort to keep that kind of tragedy from occurring again. Connecticut has expanded its assault weapons ban, and forty-three million dollars have been spent on upgrading security in a thousand schools. So, what sort of items are on the list for which these lawmakers have no appetite?
How about requiring every firearm to be registered and that those registered firearms be required to have a trigger lock? The commission suggested serial numbers be etched on every shell casing. Maybe judges could have guns removed from those who had a restraining or civil protection order. Or perhaps aspiring gun owners would have to take a suitability screening test. These are the bites too big for the Connecticut legislature to swallow. Not in 2015. How are we going to pay for all that? Why do they want to take our guns away? Why don't the people of Connecticut love their country?
Maybe because they are still reeling, more than two years after the murders of twenty-first graders and six educators, from the effects of gun violence. Connecticut Crybabies. What about the Second Amendment? You would guess that people living in the so-called "Constitution State" would be more sensitive to the words written nearly five hundred years ago. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut have all kinds of junk about how to run things, but nothing about the right to bear arms or how to load maximum capacity magazines in to assault weapons. You call that a Constitution?
Are kids any safer at school now compared to 2012? Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask the guy in Michigan who strapped his sidearm and attended an Ann Arbor high school music recital. He wasn't acting erratically or threatening anyone. He was just exercising his right to open carry. At a high school choir concert. This didn't sit well with one of the choir directors, who called the police. And a music professor from the university got up and made a big scene. What's all the fuss about? Well, even in The Great Lakes State, it's enough to make you lose your appetite.

1 comment:

Kristen Caven said...

What are they afraid of? That the gun lobby will come after them with actual assault weapons?