I think these post tend to end in a flaming row.
However the answer though not currently popular is what I think the answer is.
Making it harder to get guns will do little to nothing to stop this.
We have to face the fact it is time to abolish the Second Amendment via Constitutional change.
We need to make really tough lasting change. That means than only a select few tactical police units and the military should be armed. Regular police should be unarmed.
All guns need to be turned in by everyone else. There needs to be severe and harsh penalties for anyone not authorized in possession of a gun.
Nothing less than this will stop the carnage.
The arguments made by the hard-pro-2nd amendment fans are disingenuous at best. Bump stocks, High capacity magazines, and access to military-grade tactical weaponry is so bizarrely misguided as to be laughable. Yet its quite the opposite; somehow the arguments are made,
and accepted, that we have the right to this!
I grew up with guns. My father was a target shooter, and so was I. We never hunted. He is a member of the NRA, as am I, considering he bought me a lifetime membership back in the days of it being a responsible organization teaching firearms safety and responsible ownership.
It is a very sad thing that organization has become.
I struggle with the need to go quite so far. (Though my fondest memories are of using an old Colt AR-15 on the range, it is not really a tool for the common man. That said, I was too little to use my Dad's M-1 Garand, but could handle the smaller rounds of the AR.) Rifles made for target shooting and hunting are fine. Yes they need to be registered, and owners should pass proficiency tests for the right to continue owning and OCCASIONALLY baring arms. You don't need to go to church with a Colt, or get coffee with Smith & Wesson.
But even going as drastic as suggested previously will not remove the threat or possibility of anything untoward happening again in the future.
This is the saddest point of all.
And because of that we are yet doomed to wash, rinse, and repeat.
Maybe one day...
But until the leadership of the NRA experiences a personal crisis the likes of some of the worst we've known in the past... we have little hope.
I find myself now talking about a societal paradigm shift for the second time in as many days.
Where, and when will it all end? (The gun conversation, or me talking about a paradigm shift?
)
If a congressional softball game couldn't solve it, how many more schools, houses of worship, parades celebrating non-violence... will it take?
Our constitution wasn't written with the forethought to consider the future we call now. Their primary goal was to avoid the kind of governments that were fled in Europe to found America (or in some cases, where people were just sent away). In attempting to adapt and apply their intentions to today, you end up with the same kind of situation (and results) that lead people to argue over interpretations of biblical verse... or the quran... or song lyrics. Instead of a reasonable application of Utilitarianism, we now have a leadership class that pits "my way or no way" against the other's same reason of being.
Where do we go from here?
