So, You Want To Bear Arms?

If you want to bear arms like our Constitution written in the 18th Century says you can, then go out and  buy yourself a musket.  Our forefathers didn't know about atom bombs, or assault-type weapons capable of spitting out dozens of rounds in a fraction of a minute.

We once had a ban on assault-type weapons.  It expired.  Why?

The massacre of little children in a Connecticut school is instructive.  It puts to rest many of the NRA's contentions the foremost being that guns don't kill, people do.  And, maybe the NRA has a point.

Adam Lanza's gun might be acquitted of murder, but not Adam Lanza.  But, if Lanza's gun were not an automatic type weapon, how many people could he have killed?  One?  Maybe two?  But, that's about it.  It was the automatic nature of his weapon, that allowed him to massacre so many little children.

The NRA likes to deflect away from the weapon by citing other factors such as the mental state of the killer, parental guidance, the lack of armed guards at the school, violent TV shows and movies.  It's all nonsense.  As a kid, I played cops and robbers in a neighborhood that had no gangs and whose kids, when they got older, entered no gangs.  Ditto, violent forms of entertainment.  What segment of the population doesn't love a James Bond movie?  Sure, there are people that don't, but they form a rather small minority.  Then we come to parental guidance.  Adams mother took him to the range and taught him to respect guns.  Should she have noticed that her kid had Aspergers?  No doubt, she did.  But, does it matter?  Aspergers people are not, repeat "not", a violent subset of the general population.

I'm not for murder of any sort ( did I really have to make that statement), but murder will regrettably always be with us.  Some will occur through bludgeoning, some with a knife, some with poison, and so on.  And, some, regrettably, with a gun.  And, we've got to try to stop it.  But, we've got to start somewhere, and I think mass killings are as good a place to start as any.  Not only that, but it's relatively easy.  Ban automatic weapons.