Where is Sanity?

I wonder if our country has gone mad.  Another tragic shooting, murder actually—12 lives lost—and what are our leaders doing about it?  I give credit to Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City for speaking out in support of gun control and blasting Obama and Romney for not addressing the issue.  It is past time for us to deal with the rising gun violence in this country.  How many more people have to die?  My heart breaks for the families of the young victims in Aurora, Colorado.  Where is our outrage?

Today I found statistics on Facebook about gun violence.  I cannot attest to its accuracy but I have seen similar statistics elsewhere.  In 1 year guns murdered 17 in Finland, 35 in Australia, 38 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada, and 9,484 in the United States.  Yes, over 9,000!  Clearly, even once we adjust for population numbers, the U.S. has a huge problem with guns compared to the rest of the world.  This loss of life is simply unacceptable.

We must work together on gun control.  Now, I’m not advocating taking away all guns.  My husband and I choose not to have guns in our home, but I am not opposed to others doing so.  My father grew up in a rural area in a family of hunters and he keeps a gun.  The family guns were kept locked up and handled responsibly.

I am tired of hearing about Second Amendment rights.  This amendment refers to militias and was written at a time when men carried muskets.  How long does it take to load a musket?  The writers of this amendment could not even fathom our situation today with automatic and semi-automatic guns.  These weapons are designed to do one thing and one thing only—to kill many people very quickly.  Law-abiding citizens do not need these weapons and I will argue that they do not have the right to own these weapons.

I am appalled at the people who state that it’s too bad that nobody else was armed in that Aurora movie theatre.  Seriously?  The guy was heavily armed, and was wearing body armor and a gas mask.  Tear gas blurred people’s vision.  If others had started shooting, the odds would be that there would have been more dead people, not less.

There is nothing more dangerous than a bunch of overconfident, macho guys strutting around with guns, thinking they can handle anything.  Recently, I saw a photo of a sign on a business establishment welcoming carriers of concealed weapons.  Are you kidding?  If I saw that I would turn around and walk back out—I just wouldn’t feel safe.  Who wants to share a room with a bunch of gun-toting guys who think they’re living in the wild west or perhaps in a movie or video game, especially when they’re drinking?

Where can we go and feel safe these days?  I saw a comment that said, “great, now we can’t go to movie theatres anymore.”  Exactly.  The NRA, its followers, and the politicians in their pockets have us living in a climate of fear.  And I don’t want to hear “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  No, it is the guns—a crazy person couldn’t do such damage with a knife.  Why do we allow the NRA to rule?  I have often wondered if this group is run by organized crime.  It seems to be the only explanation for some of their stances.

We must enact serious gun control in this country, especially regarding automatic and semi-automatic weapons.  We need to elect representatives who will represent us, not the NRA, and pass reasonable gun control legislation.  These murders will continue to happen until we do something about it.  We cannot wait any longer.  Life is too precious.