Again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
The litany of death -- a peculiarly American litany of death -- continues.
February 1, Cockeysville, Maryland: A 15 year old is accused of killing his parents and two brothers. With a gun.
Groundhog's Day: Five women killed in a shopping mall in Tinley Park, Illinois. Robbery gone bad? Psychopathic misogyny? Does it matter? Five women are dead, because a murderer had a gun.
February 7, Los Angeles: A police officer, three hostages and the killer, all dead. Once again, because the murderer had a gun. Even the highly trained police SWAT team couldn't prevent it, but lost one of their own.
Same day in Kirkwood, Missouri: Another killer with a gun killed another police officer, and then invaded a City Council meeting and killed four more, including several local officials.
February 8: A killer with a gun murdered two nursing students and herself at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge. Nurses are meant to save lives, not lose them to gunfire.
February 11: One high school student in Memphis allegedly shot another in a gym class, and then handed his gun to the coach. Too bad he wasn't shooting hoops instead.
Fbebruary 12: An 8th grader in Oxnard, California is the apparent victim of a hate crime; now brain dead, he is alleged to have been shot by a 15 year-old. A hater becomes a killer with a gun in his hand.
Valentine's Day at Northern Illinois University: Five college students shot to death in a lecture hall and 15 more wounded by a suicidal killer with a gun. Four guns. Four legally purchased guns. A modern day St. Valentine's Day massacre.
When are we going to get rid of the guns? The time is past for debating the issue (aside to totalrecoil: yes, that was an interesting article, albeit with major logical flaws; I'm going to respond to it soon). Intellectual arguments about the Founder's intent are fascinating, much like medieval discussions of dancing angels and pinheads, but the fact is America is hemorrhaging because of the private arsenals permeating our land. We've got to get rid of the guns and rejoin the civilized world.
It's that simple.
I just wish America's so-called leaders would break free of the NRA's evil enchantment and do it. (I know John McCain and Mike Huckabee are hopeless, but are you listening, Senators Obama and Clinton?)
Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 14 February 2008
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2 comments:
You left out the young woman fatally shot in the head by a sniper while waiting for her food in a drive-through in Omaha. A random target. A nursing student. An only child.
Yes, it COULD happen to any of us. And the way things are going, it will — the time will come when everyone knows someone who was killed by a domestic terrorist.
Note: originally submitted by AK, 15 February 2008
I arbitrarily limited NRA month to February, and this particular victim of our gun madness, Brittany Williams, died in January. Which doesn’t make her death any less tragic or senseless. Perhaps I should refer to “NRA Year” or “NRA Century” or NRA Nation rather than “NRA Month” — each would be fully justifiable, unlike our love affair with guns.
But your larger point is tragically valid: it could happen to any of us. And it is appalling how many of us are but one or two “degrees of separation” from a gunfire victim.
Note: originally submitted by Sanderling, 15 February 2008
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