There have been a couple of reported incidents in China in which deranged men have attacked multiple kids in schools with a knife. This is very important news because it proves that easy access to guns played no part in the tragedy in Newtown, CT. Or at least, this is the gun lobby talking-point now being seen all over the web. Apparently the theory is that if Mr Adam Lanza had not been able to use multiple firearms in this massacre, he would probably have taken a knife from his mother’s kitchen drawer to the school and killed twenty children. This perverted logic is another variant of the ludicrous “it is not guns that kill people it is people who kill people” proposition. But the China incidents have proved a god-send to the NRA and its supporters, because now they can be used over and over in self-justification and a refusal to accept that unlimited gun possession and the culture surrounding guns has played any part in this tragedy.
In the last couple of days many many people, in sadness and frustration, have questioned the gun control policy (or lack of it) in this country. But even in this grief-filled aftermath, they have not been allowed to do so without vicious hate-filled attacks from gun advocates. “Liberal wing-nuts” is one of the politest forms of these attacks. I doubt that Micheal Bloomberg and the numerous Police organizations who are advocating stricter gun control measures would regard themselves as liberals, much less wing-nuts.
Mrs Nancy Lanza, mother the Newtown gunman was evidently not a liberal wing-nut. Instead, reportedly, she was an avid gun collector and enthusiast who liked to take her sons to the shooting range to practice their marksmanship. “She had a pretty extensive gun collection,” a friend of hers said. “She was a collector, she was pretty proud of that. She always mentioned that she really loved the act of shooting.” How much did being brought up in a household in which a parent “really loves the act of shooting” contribute to her son leaving twenty kids dead on a school floor? One wonders whether, if she were still alive, she would consider the NRA-promoted “freedom” to pursue her hobby of collecting multiple deadly weapons to be worth even one of those poor kids’ lives? I don’t know how anyone could agree that it was. But they will, shamefully.
From a news report – “Gun lobbyists also point out that the guns used in Newtown were not owned by the suspected killer and had been legally bought and owned by his mother”. There must be some bizarre logic behind this statement that purports to justify some aspect of all this, but it escapes me. Isn’t this the exact argument that advocates of gun control would use – that the abundant availability of deadly weapons, legal or otherwise, is actually a serious problem? But it is typical of the pretzel-like logic that gun advocates use all the time to justify the unjustifiable.
While everyone is naturally shocked and horrified at the killing of twenty children and 6 adults in one event, remember that innocent kids (and adults) are being dying every day in this country – in gun-killings that are accidental or stupid or venal or criminal. And no one in government is doing anything about it – because of the power of the NRA. Gun advocates suggest that this is a “freedom” issue, or it is about being able to protect oneself from the (existential, statistically insignificant) threat of home invasion. But at least in this one case, and I suspect many others, it is about ”really loving the act of shooting”. Well, I am sorry, but ”really loving the act of shooting”, or feeling like more of a man because you are carrying a deadly weapon is not enough to justify the killing of thousands of people a year.
And guess what, you can do without that “freedom” pretty easily, judging by the experience of other countries. Both in Australia and the UK, a single serious shooting prompted immediate legislation to ban semi-automatic weapons. Those two governments, unlike that in the US, determined that the ban was, overall, a greater benefit to society. The UK government of the time was that of Margaret Thatcher – by no means “liberal wing-nuts”. Similar legislation later banned hand-guns in the UK.
Gun advocates can talk about China all they want, but the kids from Newtown pictured below died because a gun enthusiast “really loved the act of shooting”. I hope that the NRA and their supporters print these pictures and hang them on their walls to look at and think about over Christmas, because these kids will not be eating Christmas dinner ever again. And it is your fault, NRA.
Just look at 10 ways the NRA has weakened the gun laws: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/13/nra-weakened-gun-control-laws
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/15/connecticut-shooting-tom-mauser
