The six-month anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech is Tuesday, and dozens of family members of the victims will be on Capitol Hill tomorrow urging Congress to strengthen gun legislation regarding background checks.
I don't suppose any families will be urging an end to mandated Cho Empowerment Zones?
I can understand. In the wake of Virginia Tech, the best Wayne & Co. could do was treat with the antis on HR 2640. To actually move forward on legislation that would give future victims a fighting chance would be exploiting the situation--or at least that's the line we were sold.
"What does it hurt to pause for a few days in the midst of a tragedy...?" we were asked. That presupposes a moratorium by maniacs, too, doesn't it? Do we need to wait until it does hurt, and if we do, what does experience with these matters show us the likely manufactured public sentiment will be?
"There is a time and a place for the discussion, the debate, and even the argument over gun control. I believe there is a time to resume this conversation," we were told.
Is it time yet?
7 comments:
A little past due, but here's a little nugget of information about the Vtech victims families who were contacted by the Brady campaign:
http://mglv.blogspot.com/2007/10/over-half-of-v-tech-fatalities-families.html
More than half of them didn't sign to support the Brady campaigns notion to strengthen the background check system.
Oh, Oh, I know how we can resume the conversation! Pick Me! Pick Me! We could have a "Die In" at a gunshow in Richmond! Yeah, that'll do it. We'll show those evil gun toting rednecks what we can muster up./sarcasm off.
And the lessons that should have been learned from this tragedy will go unlearned, just like they did at Columbine, and in Pennsylvania, and everywhere a deranged madman with murder in his heart has targeted unprotected children.
Israel learned these lessons the hard way. Thailand is learning these lessons now. Hell, they even get it in Afghanistan for crying out loud! Make those that are the least able to protect themselves the least desirable target you can, arm the teachers!
Liberal - A critter that can avoid seeing the elephant in the living room better than any other. Also screams the loudest when sacred cows are poked at.
Mainstream Media - A liberal under each and every condition.
The Brady Center - Liars. Traders on human misery. Lives in continual dread that someone, somewhere, is exercising a human right.
NRA leadership's response to the Virginia Tech massacre was born of the common human desire not to be thought a monster.
But when:
(1) The other side will cheerfully stoop to waving the bloody shirt to advance their program, and
(2) They're going to think free men and women are monsters anyway, no matter how much decorum they exercise,
one might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Worrying overmuch about what other people think is a misplaced priority anyway.
Anyone who's ever played a game of Diplomacy knows the feeling of doing a deal with the untrustworthy. NRA, though, backstabs itself (and worse, the membership) at the outset by living up to its end of the bargain, knowing all along (and if they haven't known it all along, the membership needs to get some smarter people in there) that the other side has no such intention.
To answer David's question: It's past time.
Olds,
I have been watching the NRA for a couple of decades now, and sadly it does not look like a lack of intelligence.
If it happens once it's luck, if it happens twice it's lack of attention/intellect, if it happens three times it's enemy action.
I have sadly come to the conclusion that the NRA leadership is consorting with the enemy, if they are not actually in league with the enemy.
Gregg, I hate to say it, but you are correct. They are in league with the enemy. They have a symbiotic relationship. Each justifies feeding off the body of the other while gaining strength from the organisms they devour (members). They never actually harm each other because that would negate their power to consume and destroy their own members. And it would be politically risky. No enemy, no funds from the membership.
People who have been psychiatrically diagnosed are statistically less violent than the general public. They are more likely to be victims.
Studies show that mental health professionals are no better than chance at predicting who is a danger to others.
See the comment from Dr. Lloyd Ross -- the eight comment from the bottom, at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2007/04/forced_treatment_1.html
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