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Second Amendment

In case you haven\’t heard, some madman shot and killed 32 people at Va. Tech before killing himself.

Too soon for the sarcastic intro?

Anyway, shortly after hearing this I am reading a news article and the president is quoted, to be fair it was a spokesman, saying \”The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed\”.

Wow…a horrific massacre (and I use that word in the truest sense, not the sensational sense that is being used in the media) has just occured, and the president has the gall/balls to use this as a political plug for defense of a narrow interpretation of the second amendment?

Bravo Mr. Bush, just when I thought I couldn\’t think any less of you… bravo!

The unblinking eye now turns to the most beloved pasttime in the country, whose fault is this! Because someone must be held responsible, and it can\’t be the poor depressed selfish idiot who actually killed these people.

The culprit must be:
— Virginia Tech: for not doing more… not locking down a campus with tens of thousands of students and faculty… or not having better security… not committing the kid to a mental hospital after he wrote some graphic plays… or some such nonsense.
— Video Games: not for any particular reason besides the fact that violent video games are a punching bag for every ignorant soccer mom and nascar dad to blame for any senseless murders
— Pharmaceuticals: it must be the anti-depression drugs (and if he wasn\’t taking any, then of course he should have been on drugs)

The list goes on. But what happened here? A seriously depressed kid went out and bought a couple of handguns and killed a bunch of people. How could this have been prevented? There are two key pieces to that statement. Depressed Kid. Bought Handguns.

Well, someone could have diagnosed him and gotten help for him. But when a kid stays on the fringes and the only interaction he gets is from his English Prof., who reports the disturbing behavior, what can be done? You can\’t force someone to see a psychologist.

The other opportunity for prevention was the easy access to handguns. We all know what a complicated and emotionally charged issue gun control is, but who is against a ban of handguns? Rifles would still be available for hunting. There is no rational necessary need for easy access to handguns in our society. There is nothing legal that necessitates the \”need\” for a handgun over a rifle.

The good news, the debate over the Second Amendment will continue. The bad news is that the same unrealistic arguments (on both sides) will be used and no meaningful change will occur.

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6 responses to “Second Amendment”

  1. monkey Avatar
    monkey

    Whenever I start thinking about intelligent ways of preventing “depressed/deranged person buys gun, shoots people” I quickly A) get depressed (neither deranged nor gun-toting) and B) get stuck on just how systematic the problem is. It’s so ingrained in vast segments of the population that it would require a completely fresh start to remove. Not removing the 2nd amendment, but removing the attitudes that generate the rabid defense of it. What really gets going are the utterly illogical arguments, and the anachronism of the first two sentence clauses of the 2nd amendment.

    Hunting: fine, especially for food and trying to restore human-disrupted ecological balances (bring back the wolves!). Handguns, uh, fun to shoot but otherwise… can’t see any reason. Regulation and permitting process: ludicrously broken and idiotic.

    Change in the debate and outcome seems exceedingly unlikely, especially in the debate. What I wouldn’t give for a president, body of advisors and elected officials, and public that can have an indoor-voice discussion acknowledging the shades of gray at issue rather than scream about black & white. Where have you gone Public Discourse? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo.

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  2. alex Avatar
    alex

    Monkey, there are terrorists out there, and they want to kill you! Why don’t you understand that?!
    (Basically the Republican/Conservative/Whatever discourse boils down to “either you agree that we (The U.S.) are God’s people and can do no wrong, or you’re ok with terrorists killing people”. It’s riddled with logical holes, but sounds powerful on TV for people with short attention spans and a bias.

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  3. monkey Avatar
    monkey

    There are also cougars out there and they want to kill me! Don’t *you* understand that?!

    “either you agree that we (The U.S.) are God’s people and can do no wrong, or you’re ok with terrorists killing people”
    Al, that sounds like the radical militant (not really) Islamist position — just flip us & them… We have met the enemy and he is us.

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  4. alex Avatar
    alex

    http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=9040170
    “Since the killing of John Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century. In 2005 more than 400 children were murdered with guns.”

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  5. monkey Avatar
    monkey

    “Instead of a debate about guns, America is now having a debate about campus security.” (from the same)

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  6. monkey Avatar
    monkey

    Round-up of European newspaper editorials.
    Interesting to note that they refer *33* dead (32+1).

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