Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Answers

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.

1 comment:

  1. 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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