It's as depressing as it was predictable: when the media harps and harps on the anniversary of a mass shooting, when politicians wallow in old blood to push through new laws, it is well-night inevitable that some weak-minded fool with a head full of simmering resentment is going to decide the best way to resolve their own situation is to shoot a person or persons who was no actual threat, in some location most people would consider safe.
Notice how well Colorado's shiny new gun laws worked. They have strict limits on how many rounds a gun's magazine can hold: the shooter used a shotgun, holding six shells or less. They've got universal background checks: an 18-year-old quite often has a clean (empty) record and sails through a background check, so there was no legal barrier to the shooter buying the gun -- if he didn't simply take it from home. There's a Federal law about guns on school grounds: he walked right through it.
Laws might make you feel better but they cannot stop someone determined to harm others. Setting up high-attention situations that appeal to people with the kind of personality flaws that make for this variety of murder has a significant probability of the crime being attempted.
One of my co-workers asked, "What's the matter in Colorado?" I didn't have an answer at the time. In hindsight, I wonder if it isn't that politicians and the media can't stop picking at the scab.
And how convenient that it came along just a day after the Paul Barrett article on how "Gun Control Is Basically Dead," in a state where a highly-politicized effort for harsher gun control is facing plenty of pushback.
If it looked any hinkier, I'd be putting together a tinfoil hat, except for the research showing they do more harm than good.
The most seriously injured victim is in a hospital about a mile from here. The source of the weapon has not been released, nor details about make or model. Comments from a student indicate that the perp had personality irregularities. "The matter with Colorado" is that it has been chosen as a pivot point by outside elements determined to impose their agenda. This causes the media to be drawn as various substances draw flies, said media being sympathetic to the agenda being pushed. It's not just bias, it's a feedback loop.
ReplyDeleteWon't we be so much happier when our leaders forcibly take all the guns..then we won't have to worry about this type of disaster. Why..we will even be able to walk in the park...at night.....without any worry about guns. Do you think there will be any classes on how to defend yourself from knife attacks???
ReplyDeleteWhy, Heavens no. That would be Too Aggressive.
ReplyDeleteAh, anonymous gives (sarcastically?) the magic wand presumption.
ReplyDeleteYou know if we're wishing that hundreds of millions of mechanically devices can all be rounded up, kept from being made, and kept from being imported... well why don't we wish our political leaders could simply ban murder.
And it seems that this weak-minded fool had Gun Control among his list of resentment.
But like that mutant cop in Cali, apparently you can go out and try to kill people to express your political desires, and the political class will nod, agree with you, and use your actions to push the very things you wanted.