Friday, December 14, 2012

Enough

You want to yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater? You can't, because your freedom of speech rights are limited.

You want to make others pray to your particular god in a public school? You can't, because your freedom of religion is limited.

You want to buy enough automatic rifles and handguns to stroll into an elementary school and murder 27 people, including 20 children? You sure can. This is America. You have a virtually unlimited right to bear arms.

You can't yell fire in a movie theater, but if you want to open fire in a crowded movie theater dressed as the Joker and massacre people, there's nothing to prevent you from buying as much ammo as you want.

Now we have this unimaginable tragedy of dead children in Connecticut, and you just know the gun lobby will be out in force telling us that their right to have enough firepower to wipe out a small community is more important that your right to feel secure when you send your children to school.

It's happened in theaters, in colleges, in high schools, in shopping malls, and now in an elementary school. As of yet, nothing has been done. Not a single law limiting the right to own automatic weapons has passed.

If this tragedy in Newtown doesn't do it, what will? Will it take a massacre at a pre-school? A mass killing at a nursery in a hospital? Is there any tragedy heinous enough that politicians will finally stand up to the gun lobby?

President Obama set the right tone when he wept at a press conference about this latest shooting. Not the president's tears, nor anyone else's, can bring those children back. But Obama can act now to make sure we don't have to suffer through any more of these mass killings. You want a rifle to protect your family? Fine. You want a gun that can fire 60 rounds of ammunition in a minute? No. NO. Enough.

My thoughts and prayers go out to these families whose suffering is unbearable. I only hope we can find the will to make sure that this kind of event never happens again.


UPDATE: Here's a screencap of the Facebook page of Wisconsin Republicans, subsequently removed, discussing the fact that just yesterday, they won the "right" to carry concealed weapons in schools. God help us.

UPDATE II: I am temporarily limiting comments to registered users, because I don't want to hear from any more idiot gun lovers who are more interested in talking about how we should arm kindergarten teachers that doing something sensible about guns.

3 comments:

NYCDOEnuts said...

I heard the NRA president, upon learning of the tragedy today tweeted that it was another shooting that happened in a gun free zone.
Loving parent of a kindergarten student here. Maybe pushing NRA politics should have been saved for another time.

Mr. Talk said...

Those idiots would likely support arming kindergartners. I wonder how it can be called a gun free zone when this killer clearly had unlimited access to guns and ammunition?
I'm sure you'll be hugging you child tight tonight. I'll be doing the same with mine.

burntoutteacher said...

I don't understand how anyone can claim that a woman (the shooter's mother) should be allowed to own not one, not two, but three guns, one of which was an assault rifle. She was a kindergarten teacher -- would that answer the NRA idiots call for citizens to arm themselves for protection against the Adam Lanzas of the world? I am heartsick.