J R BARTLEY | Olympia
Another day, another mass shooting in the United States. Yet, amid the hand-wringing, prayer vigils and calls for change, two points have slipped past both the media and the masses. First, humans will be humans, and some have been, are and always will be bent. No one has ever been successful in predicting who or when an individual will go over the edge and lash out. And even if such predictions were possible, doesn’t the law require an overt act before it can respond? What overt act preceded the Sandy Hook Massacre? Second, even if the arrested adolescents of the NRA and Second Amendment Foundation, et al, were to permit some meaningful gun control, the sheer number of guns in the U.S. now makes it easy for anyone to get anything he wants. After all, the woman who unwillingly supplied the guns used in Sandy Hook had purchased them legally (which in a way makes her responsible for the killing, doesn’t it?).
Gun shows, both in person and online, private sales both in and outside the law, and ineffective background checks when they’re even done, provide people access to weapons they never should have. The media has made this clear again and again and again.
The inescapable conclusion is that nothing is going to change: all the hand-wringing, prayer vigils, and calls for change may make people feel better, but the carnage will continue unabated. Get used to it.
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