a few responses to my angry entry
First of all, I totally totally TOTALLY agree that the lack of support and lack of resources for people who are mentally ill in this country is beyond appalling. And of course I don’t believe that just owning an automatic weapon will cause someone to go on a killing spree. However, I also find it hard to imagine that someone who is mentally ill and goes off the rails would find it nearly as easy to kill 20 small children and six more people who are trying to protect them with, oh, a baseball bat. Or a knife, like the guy in China attempted to do on the very same day. Resulting in a lot of injuries, but no dead five-year-olds with multiple gunshot wounds. Real restrictions on guns would not solve all our problems and of course we’d still have murders — but maybe we’d quit having massacres every few months.
Tender Lumpling left me an angry frothing note about my unfeeling attitude towards mental illness which I couldn’t respond to on her diary since she only has one public entry and there is not a note option. And she made it clear that she would not be coming back to the entries she wrote notes on to read any responses. (She specifically mentions me, James Ensor and Peter_24601 as… I guess as people she’s ranting about but isn’t going to let respond. At least I’m in good company. And quite honestly, there is NO point in trying to have a rational conversation about it with people who are not rational. Whichever way you are looking at it.) Her one public entry is quite the rant and I will say she makes some very good points about the lack of support and lack of help for people who suffer from mental illness. Which I completely agree with. What I do NOT agree with is the madness of believing that gun restrictions will make things worse.
HOW will they make things worse? Damned if I know. Apparently because if we outlaw guns and we aren’t all fully armed (preferably with automatic and semi-automatic weapons) only the outlaws will have guns. In other civilized countries, like, oh, England and Australia and Canada and Belgium and pretty much anywhere but here, they have restrictive gun laws and very low rates of homicide by gun. Which is kind of a "well, DUH" thing. Restricting guns has not resulted in these countries being overrun by the lawless often-cited Criminals With Guns.
I’ve seen and heard more than one comment that if the teachers and the principal and the custodians at Sandy Hook were armed, this wouldn’t have happened. What is the fuck kind of country are we living in where people actually think arming elementary school personnel is the solution???
And let me just make clear one other thing that I apparently did not make clear in the previous entry, judging by some of the notes I got — I am NOT advocating banning guns. Personally I’d love to live in a world where NOBODY has a gun, but I do realize that is not going to happen, and maybe it shouldn’t. I’m advocating putting some serious restrictions on who can and can not own a gun, and on how and where you can tote it around and requiring at least as much training as it takes before you’re allowed to, say, drive a car. (I am also pretty certain that banning guns would not lead to banning baseball bats and knives, but since I am not advocating banning guns, that’s beside the point.) Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have all kinds of restrictions on guns already! They.Are.Not.Working. (Most current case in point out of many many cases in point: the guns Adam Lanza used were legal and registered to his mother. Who apparently knew her son was unstable yet apparently gave him access to her semi-automatic weapons.)
My dad had a rifle when I was growing up, and in fact I’m sure the rifle is still in the back of his closet. He taught me and my brother how to shoot it, and I also took a gun safety class as a teenager. So despite my serious dislike of firearms, I’ve been around them and know how to use them. I know it is possible to be a safe and conscientious gun owner. I’m also sick of these senseless killings, two of which were way too close to home for me. We were living in Durham in 1995 when a shooter walked down Franklin Street and then down Henderson Street in Chapel Hill. He killed two people and wounded several more. We went to Chapel Hill nearly every weekend back then and routinely took walks down Franklin Street and Henderson Street, and if it had happened on the weekend there’s a real good chance we would have been there. Also, three of my cousins went to Virginia Tech — Cousin E went for a year and her two sisters both graduated from there. Their dad graduated from there. Cousin E’s son was a freshman at Tech when the massacre happened. Virginia Tech is a bigger university than we are, but we share a lot of things including a quiet rural setting. They are only a few hours away from us. We all know how easily it could happen here.
I wish I had answers. I wish Newtown had their children back. I wish the president of the NRA had to speak to each victim’s family and explain why loosening the current restrictions we do have on guns is a great idea. I wish everyone who is suffering from mental illness had access to help and treatment and had health care that covered the costs. I hope at least some change will come out of this latest horror, and I hope that the change is not to make things even worse.
Finally, here’s one of the most moving and intelligent articles I’ve read yet about this whole mess.
Unfortunately you can’t compare other civilized countries to the US very easily. What works for them won’t necessarily work for us.
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I am not saying whether I agree with gun control or not…however, the facts that everyone is stating about other countries having tighter gun control laws is a little less than completely informing. Those countries all have mandatory health coverage where their people can get help with medical coverage so they have access to doctor’s that many of the people in the U.S. don’t(including mental health) Also the son wasn’t “given access” to the guns. It wasn’t as if his mother had them laying on the bed and said “Use one if you want”. There are many more things than gun control that keeps things like this from happening in other countries. Guns are a small part of it. I don’t know the answers as to how to fix what is going on in our country right now. Truth is, none of us do. I don’t think a battle of the wits between millions of Americans is doing the families that are having to deal with this tragedy any good. Everyone is using their energy to fight about what should or shouldn’t be done…when we need to be using our energy to love and care for these families.
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I thought it was interesting that “Meet the Press” approached all 31 pro-gun senators and nobody would go on the show. Could it be because all the other side would have to do is repeat “twenty dead five- and six- year olds” in order to rebut every point.
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I’m ready to read more, so I will go back and look again at your previous entry and the nots. I’m glad you know enough better than to try to spar with the woman who was not able to correspond with you rationally.
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another bravo. and thank you for sharing that article.
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The gun rights people are becoming unhinged. I actually saw a note today that said “You’ll be sorry you tried to ban assault weapons when the government turns the military on us.” Whaaaaaaat? When a group stops being reasonable, it’s time to stop reasoning with them.
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RYN: That’s funny– once, my husband suggested such a test, it was a puppy test. Raise a puppy without something going horribly wrong. It is a bit disturbing that people can have kids at will, definitely more disturbing than freely available guns, but controlling reproduction is more scary than controlling guns, also. Freedom, sometimes little kids pay the price, not just soldiers overseas.
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Tender Lumping and a couple of other posters were way out of line. The reality is that there are many things that contribute to these kinds of tragedies. But our blogs are ours…where we express our thoughts and our reactions, and where we should not be hijacked by anyone else. We may not all see the same way, but we have the bond of care, love, & feeling.
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I have heard people say we should arm the teachers. Or put a stop to gun-free zones. Great. I really want the kids cowering under the desks whilst the teacher and the bad guy shoot it out. That will *really* solve the problems. More guns. Not.
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I am (I admit cynically) surprised that no one has suggested that the kids should have been armed. My elementary school is very much in style like the one where this happened and I was shocked to the core to see a sign outside it a few years ago that said “No Guns Allowed”. An elementary school. I think I have a picture of that sign somewhere. I sure hope like you that we can figure thisout. I’ve had about all I can take of this and I know I am not alone.
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So, there are those among us who think armed school personnel would end — what? — all school violence? Just the bigger shootings? I seem to recall that when Gabrielle Giffords got shot in Arizona, many in the crowd were packing heat and no one other than the crazy gunman fired a shot. Just because a person is comfortable with hunting or likes the feel of a metal bulge in their pants,doesn’t mean that they are trained and ready to act as a cop — or maybe closer to the fantasy — as a soldier when a random act of violence takes place. Responsible people should have the right to own guns if they want to. The government should have the right to screen out the nutjobs and should be aware of which citizens have chosen to own a gun. Arming everyone to the teeth, however, just results in a lot of unused hardware and probably would result in more panicked, accidental shootings. Then we’ll need socialized medicine to cope with all the foot injuries.
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I am pleased to see this debate happening.
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RYN: Clever idea about the NRA President confronting the families. Won’t happen. Many years ago the husband of a nurse on Long Island was killed during a commuter train massacre. The nurse ran for Congress and helped pass gun control legislation. She’s Carolyn McCarthy, now in her umpteenth term.
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The gun debate is controlled by paranoid types who imagine government troops confiscating weapons. We need a ban on selling military grade weapons to civilians. We need to focus on that.
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Did you ever hear of the Bath school massacre of 1927? The killer used dynamite in that case, and killed 38 children. No gun involved at all. The point being that when someone wants to commit an act of violence on that scale, they will find a way.
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I am all for BANNING guns so every one feel free to come and froth at me.
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As a Canadian, we cannot understand this American mentality of that you have no freedom if you cannot buy a hand gun. Rifles are common for hunting. Tons of Canadians hunt. Sure we have violence. We just have WAY less gun violence. Gun restrictions work everywhere. I really don’t get the need for anyone to have a machine gun unless they were in a war.
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