2. I thought President Obama's speech in Tuscon was excellent. Maybe one of the best speeches I've seen him give--up there with the speech on race in Philadelphia in 2008.
3. I love how many heroes there are in this story--the intern who rushed to Congresswoman Giffords' side, the people who shielded others from the spray of bullets, the woman who prevented the shooter from reloading, the two men who wrestled the him to the ground.
4. Although this shooting cannot and should not be blamed on conservatives' rhetoric, it does make it harder to ignore the Right's mix of paranoid anti-government hysteria and gun fetish. Not a good combination. Am I the only one who thinks it strange that in order to win a Republican primary, candidates often have to one up each other over how many guns they own? "How many guns do you own?" was a question in the recent debate between RNC chairman candidates. The more guns listed, the more excited was the crowd.
5. Jared Loughner used a Glock 19 with a 30-round magazine to kill 6 people and wound 13. Can anyone tell me the appropriate use for this weapon? A Glock is light, easy to carry, easy to conceal, carries a bunch of rounds, and is easy to fire rapidly. In other words, it's perfect for pulling out in a crowd and wreaking havoc. That made it the weapon of choice for the Virginia Tech shooter. I mean, who really needs a 30-round clip for home defense? What I'm getting at is this: There's no good reason that weapons like this are for sale for just about anyone to buy. America has weird-ass issues with gun worship, and we pay a heavy price for it.
7. That's all for now. This is too big and too sad a topic for me to discuss in any concise and coherent narrative.
3 comments:
I don't think the Constitution says anything about home defense.
But I agree. This weapon can only be interpreted as a tool intended to kill as many people as possible in a brief period of time.
Some of our fellow citizens have gone a little around the bend about guns. Based on the survivalist blogs that I read, lots of members of the brotherhood of the gun believe that they will ultimately have to defend themselves from the agents of the US government or some combination of international one-world-government forces. Others figure it'll be their marauding neighbors after TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it), although some refer to it as when TSHTF (the shit hits the fan). Google those terms and you'll see what I mean. I think some of them will be broken hearted if they live out their lives in a peaceful nation.
I agree, Papa. And these attitudes worry me. We have a whole segment of otherwise sane persons who are convinced that every day may be THE DAY that the Gummint comes to take their land and force their daughters to abort (or whatever the fear is today). This creates and expectation of instability and assault that increases the risk of violent overreaction. Now, I wholly understand a measured distrust of authority. But the level of paranoia so haphazardly distributed to everyone not-so-pink and everything Eagle-y (yet coupled with a bizarre hyper patriotism as well) is not a healthy exercise.
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