National gun control legislation is dead again. A month after a shooter massacred 17 students and faculty at Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, it looks as if Congress will not be taking up any gun control bill, nor will the White House, currently preoccupied with blaming video games for the violence, be sending any measures, other than the insane idea of arming teachers, to Capitol Hill. For a time, there, it looked like this latest tragedy would be the one that finally led to action, but the GOP is nothing if not resilient when it comes to ignoring calls for action that go against the will of their paymasters. Continue reading “Once Again, Nothing”
Tag: 2nd Amendment
Here We Go Again
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is an outdated relic that gun enthusiasts use as a cudgel against any meaningful gun control legislation. Many liberals, this one included, have been loathe to speak out too forcefully against it, for a variety of reasons. The way that I soothed my own conscience about the 2nd Amendment was to hold with the idea that weakening the 2nd could leave the other amendments vulnerable. That’s still a concern, but it’s outweighed by my desire, a common sense one, to live in a society that is no longer armed to the teeth — that no longer fetishizes firearms. Continue reading “Here We Go Again”
Guns Are Part of the Problem
This has been written about before, but until the problem is solved, it’s worth writing about over and over and over again. Omar Mateen, the shooter who massacred scores of people at an Orlando nightclub, bought his guns, a Sig Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle (similar to an AR-15) and a Glock 17 semi-automatic handgun, legally. Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the two shooters who carried out the San Bernardino massacre, acquired their weapons, a pair of AR-15 type semi-automatic rifles as well as two 9mm semi-automatic handguns, legally. Adam Lanza, the deranged killer of twenty children and seven adults in Newtown, Connecticut, used a Bushmaster XM15-E2S, a weapon based on the AR-15, to carry out his crime. It had been purchased legally by his mother, with whom he lived. James Holmes, the perpetrator of the mass shooting at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, bought the weapons he used, a Glock 22 semi-automatic handgun, a Remington 870 Express Tactical shotgun, and a Smith & Wesson M&P15, an AR-15 variant, legally. Continue reading “Guns Are Part of the Problem”
Cocksuckers Ball: Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
Gun control looks to be dead. Whatever hopes people had that something positive could come out of the Newtown massacre have been dashed. Assault weapons ban? Dead. Magazine size limit? Dead. National gun registry? Dead. Universal background checks, the most popular of all gun control proposals? Dead. Continue reading “Cocksuckers Ball: Are You Fucking Kidding Me?”