Re: 2012 Presidential Election - The Day after the Aftermath...
You hear that if guns didn't exist, the Lanza's of the world would resort to other weapons including FF's hands. My question is if these other weapons are so great...why don't any of these killers use knives? Or their bare hands? Why don't they use any other weapon...ever? Why do they always use guns? Could it possibly be that with a knife a guy at an elementary school can be stopped by one guy with a baseball bat. With guns you're nearly impossible to stop...and its easier to kill mass numbers? No, its guns and specifically those with high rates of fire that make it so hard to stop catastrophies like this.
So you're suggesting we have guys walk around elementary schools with a baseball bat to protect the students??
First, the reason people choose to use guns is because guns are available, they're easy to use, you are somewhat "detached" from your victim (you don't actually have to physically touch them to kill them), they are popularly depicted as devices used to kill people in movies, tv and video games, and a variety of other reasons. That doesn't mean, though, that if you banish guns killing will go away, or even mass killing. Mass killings have existed since humans existed in one form or another, and there hasn't been a direct correlation with mass executions and the invention of firearms made, at least as far as I've seen.
With respect to your comments about the types of guns used, as I understand it both the rifle and the two handguns were "semi-automatic", not "automatic" firearms. In fact, I don't think you can even buy automatic firearms anymore.
Semi-automatic weapons means one bullet exits the gun each time you pull the trigger, which is the basic principal behind every firearm. A semi-automatic weapon just does the reloading for you, admittedly not at the same speed as old Chuck Connors and his Winchester 30-30. Semi-automatic firearms are a basic staple of many hunters and can include shotguns, long rifles and handguns.
We've banned fully automatic weapons and that hasn't stopped the killings, even though no one ever uses one anymore. You can now ban semi-automatic weapons. That won't stop the killings either. Then you can move on to bolt action, pump action, lever action and even single shot firearms. But again, that won't stop the killings.
I think someone pointed out yesterday that this country, a few decades ago, got away from the institutionalizing of people with mental defects. We used to just warehouse them. You had a kid or young adult who wasn't just "right", they could end up in what we kids used to call the "nuthouse." Wasn't very humane, and somewhere along the line we decided everyone deserved the right to be "integrated" into our society, regardless of your ability to function within that society. I'm not here to say whether that decision was good or bad.
Candidly, imho, the people or thing to blame for the recent shooting isn't the guns. It isn't videogames or movies or violent tv. It isn't our lack of laws, or correct laws. It's us. It's our neverending lust to rubberneck at the tragedy of others.
The NFL, major league baseball and others have refused to show idiots running naked onto their ballfields, in order to discourage behavior. To a large extent it has worked. Where's the fun in running naked onto the field with 22 large football players who are more than happy to put you down if you don't get a little ESPN time out of it.
I turned on my tv after work the night of the shooting to see a semi-sober Diane Sawyer breathlessly announce she was going to spend an hour talking about "The Tragedy at the Elementary School." The bodies weren't even cold yet and they had friggin named the event.
And everyday since there has been little else in the newspaper or on tv. That is, until the next Aurora, Columbine, etc...
Why do they do it? Because we the public watch it. We demand it. It's why people slow down to look at an accident scene on the other side of the interstate highway. We love tragedy, so long as it's not our own. We want to see. So the networks keep showing it, and we keep watching it, and some idiot named Adam Lanza has received way more than his 15 minutes of fame, just like he knew he would when he picked up those guns that morning.
Somewhere along the line I long for the day when the event would have been announced on the nightly news, without pictures and probably without a reporter on location, and we'd have moved on, and maybe Adam Lanza doesn't even know it happened.
