I've got a few thousand questions that need to be answered. Here are just three: How did that five-year-old girl get shot in Oakland last Saturday? What private citizen needs armor-piercing shells? What private citizen needs a magazine capable of carrying a hundred rounds of armor-piercing ammunition?
I could go on and on, but that's what I tend to do every time we, as a country, experience an event like the shooting in Aurora. I ask a lot of questions. Sometimes I get answers. Reading the comments on the articles about the shooting, I found that just about every list included a solution like this: "If only somebody would have been carrying a concealed handgun in that theater. They could have smoked that guy." Smoked. Killed. Shot. Never mind that it was a room filled with hysterical people scrambling to get away from the other guy with a gun. Never mind that it was dark. Never mind that there was smoke in the air. I'm sure that wouldn't have ended well. Nothing like a crossfire in a crowded movie house. Somebody yell "Fire."
I want a real answer. This time I don't want it from the people with whom I agree. What does the Gun Lobby say? What about the NRA? What does Wayne LaPierre have to say? While I wait for answers from these folks, I figure it's about time to go dig up Charlton Heston and pry the gun from his cold, dead hands. It's not an answer, but it might make me feel better.
There is short-term problem solving and long-term problem-solving; the latter is also called "prevention." People who think some lady with a pearl-handled pistol is going to be able to stop some kevlar-encased guy with an automatic weapon doesn't get the big picture: how to stop this sort of craziness from happening in the first place.
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