Even writing that sentence gives me pause. The innocent phrase "elementary school" and the brutal word "massacre" don't naturally coexist, and yet there is no other way to describe what happened in Connecticut.
On Christmas Eve, my daughter and I walked along the edge of the surf on the Atlantic Ocean. It was cold and windy, and we had the place to ourselves.
Well, almost to ourselves.
My daughter found them first. They were thin, polished rocks. The first said "Poppa." The next was for "Nana." And then there was one that was black with the names of twenty-six innocents, murdered by a mentally ill man and the guns that he had stolen from his mother.
Someone had taken a moment to remember others before throwing those stones out into the ocean, which returned them for my daughter to find. It was a stark reminder of what happened, and what it means to truly lose someone.
The fact remains that those families will never be the same because a mentally ill man had access to guns.
The children that survived, when the enormity of the disaster they lived through finally settles on their shoulders, some time far out in the future, will always carry the scars. They are young, but not so young that they won't remember that day, or the happier times they spent on the playground with the victims. They won't forget their principal. They won't forget the buses that now take them to a different school.
I think it's time for our country to begin discussing some serious, long-term plans to reduce the overall number of guns in America and also to restrict the levels of access that those with criminal backgrounds or issues with mental illness have to those weapons.
I heard Colin Goddard say this morning on CNN that 40% of gun transactions in this country happen at gun shows. Many of these are cash transactions, and closing the gun-show loophole is the first debate we should be having.
Why is Colin so fired up about the access that the mentally ill have to guns? He was shot four times in the Virginia Tech slaughter of 2007.
Kind of funny how getting shot by crazy people makes folks angry, isn't it? Perhaps some of those in the gun lobby would have a different view if they were attacked while simply sitting in a school somewhere...
The gun lobby has deep pockets. Thankfully, other survivors are stepping to the forefront to try to match them in resources and political willpower. As the duo writes in this opinion piece:
- Forget the boogeyman of big, bad government coming to dispossess you of your firearms. As a Western woman and a Persian Gulf War combat veteran who have exercised our Second Amendment rights, we don't want to take away your guns any more than we want to give up the two guns we have locked in a safe at home. What we do want is what the majority of NRA members and other Americans want: responsible changes in our laws to require responsible gun ownership and reduce gun violence.
Can research and restrictions work? Consider this piece, on why we haven't begun to allow that to happen. Here's a little data from the conclusion:
- Given the chance, could researchers achieve similar progress with firearm violence? It will not be possible to find out unless Congress rescinds its moratorium on firearm injury prevention research. Since Congress took this action in 1997, at least 427,000 people have died of gunshot wounds in the United States, including more than 165,000 who were victims of homicide. To put these numbers in context, during the same time period, 4,586 Americans lost their lives in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Really? That's your suggestion? Guns in schools? Guns for teachers?
How about this. How about we limit the number of new handguns permitted for sale every year in the United States? You want to go hunt deer with your .357? What, you don't? Oh, I see! That hand cannon is there to "protect" your castle!
Nope. Not any more. If you want to buy a plain old hunting rifle, and you use it to hunt food lawfully, then you can have a gun.
Otherwise, you need to apply for a concealed weapon permit to own a handgun of any sort. Ownership of such a weapon without the proper permit should become a felony. Turn it in or get the permit or become a felon. I know thousands of upstanding, law-abiding folks will have no problem taking the training and going through the process to make their handguns legal under this scenario.
It should be more difficult to get a concealed weapon permit also. Applicants should have to undergo a rigorous round of psychological testing. The waiting period should be much longer.
Close the loopholes on gun shows, allow only legitimate hunters the chance to own rifles, make all handgun owners go through the training and permitting process to carry a concealed weapon, and ramp up the psychological testing for potential gun owners of all sorts. Similarly, make the laws for those carrying a gun, and who shouldn't be, much tougher. Felons in possession of a firearm need to go back to jail for a long, long time.
And get rid of the Internet sales, for heaven's sake! Here's how Cho got his guns:
- Seung-Hui Cho was a faceless e-mail address when he ordered a .22-caliber Walther P-22 pistol for $267 from Wisconsin gun dealer Eric Thompson via the Internet on Feb. 2. The Virginia Tech senior drew no special attention when he picked the weapon up a week later from JND Pawnbrokers, near the spacious Blacksburg campus in southwest Virginia.
Cho was hardly more memorable a month later when he traveled in person to Roanoke Firearms about 35 miles away and made a $571 credit-card purchase of a 9 mm Glock 19 pistol and 50 rounds of ammunition. “A clean-cut college kid,” said John Markell, the store's owner, quoting the after-the-fact description from the clerk who handled the March 13 transaction.
Twice, the Korean-born Cho presented the necessary identification — his Virginia driver's license, checkbook and immigration card — to complete the federal background check required for handgun purchasers. Twice, computers took only moments to display the needed authorization: PROCEED. (Jost, CQ Researcher)
We have no guns in our home. Growing up, I lived in two towns (John Day and Pendleton) in which hunting and shooting were seriously ingrained in the fabric of those cultures. In John Day, we actually had the opening day of deer-hunting season off from school.
My friends liked to hunt and shoot, but I'm thankful to my parents for never encouraging these activities in our family. I read about mishaps with weapons all the time out here in Florida--kids finding their parents' weapons and killing themselves accidentally.
The old saw that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is a false premise, because clearly we haven't been able to "fix" these dithering idiots that own guns. They still manage to be unable to take care of their families. And just because they are irresponsible and none too bright shouldn't mean a child without a cognitive memory yet should have to die for his parents' idiocy.
No, we've failed at fixing gun owners. Now it's time to restrict their access to their precious guns.
We have many problems to deal with in this country at present, but gun control remains at the top of the list. Here's hoping that 2013 is a year of meaningful change in taking steps to reduce the overwhelming number of senseless killings that take place in our country every day by people who shouldn't have guns, but who do anyway...
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