Monday, December 17, 2012
A special place in hell...
Today, the funerals begin for the victims of the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Our nation's collective hearts mourn the loss of these 20 children (six and seven years old) and 7 adults...all at the hands of a monster named Adam Lanza, a creep who decided one morning to kill his mother in cold blood, then travel to the elementary school where she worked and, armed with three semi-automatic weapons, proceed to shoot (and murder) innocent children and their teachers, before turning the gun on himself. Adam? I hope you burn in hell...
Having worked in law enforcement and at times as a first responder, I still can't even begin to imagine what these people went through...however, I can relate and I believe have a somewhat keen understanding of the second guessers and Monday morning quarterbacks who can't even wait for the youngest of the young to be laid to rest before they begin spouting their bifurcated political drivel. One side begins the volley with the "guns are the problem," diatribe, immediately followed by the tried and (un)true, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Tell that to the children...I don't want to hear it...
One of my favorite people in the industry (although we've never met) is Marcos Breton, a columnist with our local rag, the Sacramento Bee. He wrote almost immediately after the tragedy, a thoughtful and insightful piece which clearly showed respect for the victims and families, yet also offered a scathing indictment of the problem...NOT the same old back and forth, but clear cogent advice as to how we as a nation can begin healing and at the same time, start to take more responsibility for ourselves and our families. Marcos summed it up nicely within the first few paragraphs with, "can't we simply agree that there are some people in our society who should not have legal access to guns and ammunition?" The entire column, a must read, is attached...
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/16/5057222/marcos-breton-action-needed-on.html
I'm not sure how much better I can say it than this column, but as you know, as always, I'll give it a shot. Since when is requiring someone to understand the responsibilities inherent in owning and operating a firearm...a violation of 2nd Amendment rights? IT IS NOT! Since when is starting a nationwide firearm registry in order to document who has a firearm and whether they are responsible enough to own one...a violation of 2nd Amendment rights? IT IS NOT! While we're at it, since when is limiting the amount of ammunition and capacity of magazines on firearms...a violation of 2nd Amendment rights? You got it...IT IS NOT!
Here, I'm not going to get into the age-old debate about how criminals don't care about laws and they will simply ignore the limits and requirements of any new law...nor am I going to remain static when people start whining about how "we don't enforce the laws we already have on the books." Again, we get nowhere when the debate stoops so low. That's old news. I'm also not going to go the "we need better mental health treatment," route. Though undeniably true that mental health "treatment" is vital, it gets us only so far...first things first...those children's classmates, teachers and families should be the first ones to receive this type of assistance...and of course, the first responders.
Nope, what we've got to do...is see to it that, as much as humanly possible, we take steps to insure that monsters like Adam Lanza have a "more difficult" time gaining access to all types of firearms and ammunition (don't even get me started on body armor)...and while we're at it, let's also do our best to keep bows and arrows, spears, knives, hell, even sharp spoons out of the hands of scum like him.
Having worked in law enforcement and at times as a first responder, I still can't even begin to imagine what these people went through...however, I can relate and I believe have a somewhat keen understanding of the second guessers and Monday morning quarterbacks who can't even wait for the youngest of the young to be laid to rest before they begin spouting their bifurcated political drivel. One side begins the volley with the "guns are the problem," diatribe, immediately followed by the tried and (un)true, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Tell that to the children...I don't want to hear it...
One of my favorite people in the industry (although we've never met) is Marcos Breton, a columnist with our local rag, the Sacramento Bee. He wrote almost immediately after the tragedy, a thoughtful and insightful piece which clearly showed respect for the victims and families, yet also offered a scathing indictment of the problem...NOT the same old back and forth, but clear cogent advice as to how we as a nation can begin healing and at the same time, start to take more responsibility for ourselves and our families. Marcos summed it up nicely within the first few paragraphs with, "can't we simply agree that there are some people in our society who should not have legal access to guns and ammunition?" The entire column, a must read, is attached...
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/16/5057222/marcos-breton-action-needed-on.html
I'm not sure how much better I can say it than this column, but as you know, as always, I'll give it a shot. Since when is requiring someone to understand the responsibilities inherent in owning and operating a firearm...a violation of 2nd Amendment rights? IT IS NOT! Since when is starting a nationwide firearm registry in order to document who has a firearm and whether they are responsible enough to own one...a violation of 2nd Amendment rights? IT IS NOT! While we're at it, since when is limiting the amount of ammunition and capacity of magazines on firearms...a violation of 2nd Amendment rights? You got it...IT IS NOT!
Here, I'm not going to get into the age-old debate about how criminals don't care about laws and they will simply ignore the limits and requirements of any new law...nor am I going to remain static when people start whining about how "we don't enforce the laws we already have on the books." Again, we get nowhere when the debate stoops so low. That's old news. I'm also not going to go the "we need better mental health treatment," route. Though undeniably true that mental health "treatment" is vital, it gets us only so far...first things first...those children's classmates, teachers and families should be the first ones to receive this type of assistance...and of course, the first responders.
Nope, what we've got to do...is see to it that, as much as humanly possible, we take steps to insure that monsters like Adam Lanza have a "more difficult" time gaining access to all types of firearms and ammunition (don't even get me started on body armor)...and while we're at it, let's also do our best to keep bows and arrows, spears, knives, hell, even sharp spoons out of the hands of scum like him.
# posted by mediacopp : 9:45 AM
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