Musing on the aftermath of VT tragedy

[vg_ford]

I wasn't sure I was going to post on this. I've been doing a lot of reading of the posts on my flist, and doing a lot of thinking, and finally decided that I was going to post after all.

I am a gun owner. My guns are not at my house: they are at my father's house, with gunlocks on my rifle, in the locked gun cabinet, with the ammunition stored separately, also under lock. I own, currently, a .22 rifle that was given to me for Christmas when I was 14 by my father, and a set of antique dueling pistols from the Civil War. Women's dueling pistols, actually (yup, been in the family for generations. Explains a lot, doesn't it?).

In the aftermath of a tragedy like this, there will once again be calls from both sides of the gun debate. Those supporting gun laws will be calling for a total ban on guns, which of course the NRA will never allow. Those against gun laws will be screaming 2nd Amendment rights. And in the screams and emotions, there will be absolutely no reasonable, rational discourse, so nothing will get done. Until the next tragedy, the next school shooting, the next sniper incident, at which point the cycle will begin again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

So what is the solution? Is it to truly get rid of all guns, to legislate them out of existance? Is it education? What is the solution?

Honestly, I don't know.

Personally, I don't think simple legislation will work. You can make tighter and tighter gun laws all you want: since criminals don't worry about other laws, then why should that stop them? Will it stop the accidents? Maybe. Will it stop the school shootings? I doubt it - most of them were committed with illegal guns, if I remember correctly.

Is this to say I'm anti-gun-legislation, that I'm one of those "NRA freaks"? No, I'm not. I support laws stating that guns and ammunition should be locked up and sold separately. I don't think anyone needs an M-16 or an AK-47 to go hunting. I support laws stating that there should be waiting periods and that we shouldn't sell to children.

However, I also support laws stating that everyone should know gun safety. How many accidents a year happen because kids are fooling around with Dad's or Mom's gun and it "just went off?" Let me tell you, my father made DAMN sure us kids ALL knew what a gun was. Number 1, it wasn't a toy. Number 2, if you point it at someone, you damn well better know what the consequences are. Number 3, if you aren't prepared to kill someone, don't point the damn gun at them.

Yes, guns are glamorized by American society. You only have to look at the movies, the music, the books to see that. So's organized crime (The Sopranos, anyone? Or Goodfellas?), drugs (Blow?), and any number of other things that really aren't good for our society in general.

So what's the answer? I don't know. Maybe it's time for a world-wide cleansing and starting over. (Damn, that sounds cynical, but it's quarter past 1 in the morning).

Maybe it's time humanity in general started taking responsibility for our own damn actions and started acting like damn adults.

Comments

[kbaccellia.livejournal.com]

After my sister's murder, I went to the far extreme and wanted guns banned. Now I feel that there needs to be tougher laws on how to purchase a gun. My sister's murderer was able to walk into a gun store and purchase his weapon without an intense background check. He had some mental issues. You'd think after all these tragedies that the laws would be tougher but they aren't. From what I heard, it's still easy to purchase guns.

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

Agreed. But again, you come back to the fact that you can make the laws tougher, but the criminals who use them are going to ignore them. There's a post on jaylake's LJ to the effect that after they banned guns in Britian, gun-related crimes WENT UP. Not down. UP.

What do you do after you've banned them, you've legislated them to death, and people are still killing people with them?

And no, I really don't have an answer to it. I wish to hell someone did, though.