Yet Another Shooting

It's happened again, another mass shooting.

I've hoped that one of these times, it would prove to be a tipping point and there would be a loud outcry from millions of Americans saying, "Enough! This has to stop," and effectively pressuring their leaders to do something about these shootings and control guns.

Guns, to my mind, are nasty things. Some people think they need a gun in their home for "protection," but that produces accidents where a very young child picks up the gun and shoots herself or a sibling or parent. (Do a Google search for "father shoots son." It will turn up news items on sons being shot by fathers and fathers being shot by sons—often accidentally.)

But there are those individuals, and the NRA (National Rifle Association), who get paranoid at the very mention of any sort of controls on guns whatsoever. If owning a gun is not a God-given right, it's a Constitutional right. Never mind that (1) there can be a lot of arguing over the meaning and/or intention of the Second Amendment; and (2) there has been a significant history of jurisprudence holding that guns can be regulated.

It's no secret that the NRA is very powerful. The NRA very recently, in Colorado, backed the successful recall of two state senators who had voted for gun-control measures.

The NRA claims it's just a bunch of owners of guns for hunting and handguns possessed for protection or target practice. Why, then, do they oppose legal limits on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines?

One thing that should be understood is that the NRA has not only gun-owning individuals as its members but gun manufacturers as well who, of course, want to see more guns and more ammunition bought. For them, one or two or three guns per household is not enough (and I believe that, as a national average, we already have more than one gun per household).

Other countries can scarcely believe that America is so gun-crazed and that we put up with these shootings again, and again, and again.

Copyright © 2013.