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My sinecere condoleneces to all the victims’ families and relatives in the school in New Town, Connecticut…

December 18, 2012

This post should be about my jokes for the weekend or the beginning of the new week, yet the dreadful murder of twenty innocent kids and six of their teachers in New Town, Connecticut, USA was so brutal, cruel and meaningless that jokes would not be appropriate at all…

My sincere condolences to all the victims’ families and relatives must be the only written words here, as well as some good suggestions and thoughts I found in Internet. I’m not an America citizen and an expert in USA’s Constitution and all the good and bad sides of America’s laws, but it’s obvious after such a horror (and it’s not the only one) there must be some changes made in some of them (I was in shock with the words of an American weapon expert who said on the news that in Virginia one has to be twenty one year old to drink and buy alcohol in restaurants and shops but when one wants to buy a weapon, no one would ask for an ID card!)…

And I won’t discuss the issue that Americans should be so concerned about the dead kids in other countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, etc because of USA’s bombing as they are about the poor little souls who lost their lives in the school in New Town, as the goal of this post is not about that:

TURN OFF THE NEWS…….

Morgan Freeman’s brilliant take on what happened yesterday :

“You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why.
It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed
people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-right-to-bear-arms-2012-7

A state-of-the-art assault weapon in 1791

Yes, we have this debate every time some sick bastard buys some guns and shoots innocent people, and I have no doubt that this episode of the the debate will end the same way it always does:

With each side endlessly repeating their usual bullet points and then getting bored and moving on.

And then in another week or month or year, some other sick bastard will buy himself a cache of weapons and slaughter more innocent people, and then we’ll have the debate again.

And so on…

And that’s understandable, if frustrating–especially for those whose family members and friends are the ones who are killed.

For better and worse, we do have a constitutional “right to bear arms” in this country, and it should take a broad consensus to amend the Constitution. And, yes, it probably does make sense for us to have at least some right to bear some arms, even if having the right to buy quasi-machine guns like the one used in the Colorado massacre seems ludicrous. And there’s a vast difference between bearing some arms in, say, Wyoming, and bearing them in New York City, where the population density is a tad higher, and so forth. So, of course, this is going to be a contentious and impassioned debate.

But can we at least agree on one thing?

Can we at least agree that, since 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, the country’s circumstances have changed?

In 1791, for example:

There were only 3.9 million Americans
The “arms” we gave ourselves the right to bear were vastly less powerful–namely they were single-shot muskets that had to be manually loaded with powder and ball for each shot, versus today’s semi-automatic assault weapons that spray 50-60 high-caliber bullets per minute
It was legal to own slaves in some parts of the country (Constitutionally permissible behavior that, fortunately, changed)
“America” didn’t extend west of the Mississippi River (and, really, it was only the 13 colonies)
Indians still attacked occasionally
We hunted a lot of our food
“States” really were separate countries in those days–it took months to travel from one end of the country to the other
The “frontier” (and many other parts of the country) was essentially lawless: Citizens had to protect themselves, because no one else was around to do it (Now, most states have well-armed police forces, etc.)
And so on…

Basically, can we at least agree that giving ourselves the unfettered right to buy, sell, and own whatever kinds of weapons we want might have made more sense in 1791 than it does today–and, therefore, that it’s a bit unfair to couch this debate in terms of “defending the Constitution” and/or trying to figure out what the Framers meant by “a well-regulated militia”?

Getty

The Framers meant THESE arms when they wrote the Second Amendment? Really??

I mean, do folks really think that if the “Framers” had seen what happened in that Colorado movie theater last week, they still would have written the Second Amendment the way they did–with no qualifications?

Yes, this point is academic, because the Second Amendment is what it is.

But can we all at least agree that it’s a bit, if nothing else, outdated?

Or are we all totally cool with any old sick bastard being able to buy as many quasi-machine guns as he or she wants?

Winner(!!!!!) of MOST IMPORTANT POST OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Art Schultz:

Finally, I will say this about the mass murders in Connecticut.

All too often, People hide inactivity behind prayer, hoping things will get better without taking any action themselves, By all means Pray if you feel the need
To do so. just remember that it does not end there. You have not done your
Part which is to become ACTIVE. Do not become angry because God did not

Do something amazing to compensate for mans passivity and laziness.

The mental health and the future of this Nation and all nations rests upon
Our caring enough for our Children, working and middle class, our Military , Women , Seniors, LGBT, and all people who are DIFFERENT than us.

The fact that you may not live forever or feel that the well being of strangers
Has nothing to do with you is WRONG. You, a Family Member or someone
You know can just as easily become the next victim in a major incident.

It is time that I , we and YOU let your elected officials know that we care
About people who need psychiatric help, help with having health care, a
Roof over their heads, and food on their tables.

it is time that I, We and YOU demand GUN CONTROL. taking guns totally
Away from people is NOT what I am suggesting. I am saying we need better
Controls on WHO can have an Gun, how many and why. it is time that
People with mental and emotional issues not be allowed to just slip through
The crack and be able to weapons as easily as one buys a candy bar.

This will not be the last such massacre.They will continue to happen until
WE decide that it must stop. The news can help by not continually talking
About the perps who bare sick, sick individuals who in part do these things
Because they know they will have a place in history albeit a sick one.
Already, somewhere there is some sick person already thinking about how
They can break the record and show up the last one.

Finally, by all means PRAY, but please take ACTION too and call your
Elected officials, Visit your Childs school and know who their friends are
And let someone know when you see REAL antisocial tendencies in children.
They might get the help they need if WE demand it. No age is too young.

What you DO from this day forward is what will prevent others copycat
Incidents. All of the Prayer, Candles , flowers, vigils and Teddy Bears left
On the side of buildings and parks are useless compared to actually DOING
Something.

PEACE