The news of the horror of the sniper attack on a Las Vegas
concert has surely been brought to your attention. The world is now aware of the worst massacre by a single individual in our country. I struggle to comprehend the amount of
carnage one person can rain down of our populace. How can it be that a lone
gunman can kill 59 (and counting) people and wounded over 500, in a matter of minutes. It’s a tragic commentary on the level of
arms that a single individual can attain.
It’s also the unfolding story, I believe, of the level of hate and/or
mental illness that ravages all that it entangles.
To date I’ve been sympathetic to the desire of having arms
to protect oneself and family, or hunt the lands for food. These purposes are noble enough, though I know not all agree with the premise. The
law allows for these uses – defense and hunting, even the sport of
marksmanship. There is a missing link though that rears it’s ugly head all the
time.
Even those with cleared background checks have used weapons
outside of the law. This instance seems
to be pointing in that direction as well.
The gunman, thus far, has little reported in the news regarding criminal
behavior or suspected ill will towards society.
The terrible truth is that this gunman amassed a large arsenal and apparently “snapped.”
I'm not trying to single out a particular rifle and distinguish an "assault" vs "hunting" weapon, or get into the specifics of a single action vice a semi-auto system. The specifics can be left to further debate. My question is more straight forward.
How do we prevent this?
It seems more and more clear that there needs to be some
limitations. Limitations that many of my
friends will not want to support. I
expect there to be debate. I expect this
to be hard for our country. I also
expect that those in favor of unlimited weaponry to discuss and provide
solutions to prevent the terror that so easily was unleashed in such an
incredibly short period of time by a well organized and determined individual. ONE individual caused all of this horror.
What am I, what are you, what are we willing to do to stop
this from ever happening again? Or are you, like me, taking this in through a fog of Deja-vu that makes one wonder if we collectively will ever solve this problem, or just be willing to become comfortably numb to the carnage that is far too common and frequent in our new feeds?
It seems like many are willing to become "comfortably numb". What's odd is that on my memories for today on Facebook the one from 2015 is that I felt numb when I heard the news of "the mass shooting". I don't remember now which mass shooting that was. There is something painfully wrong with that. There must be limits on these things. There must be something that we can do. I support hunting and marksmanship even as a vegetarian who doesn't want guns in her own home. But these weapons for mass killing - there has to be a better way. A way to regulate and make things safer for everyone. These are weapons designed to kill large numbers of people. Period. That's their purpose. There need to be ways to keep these out of the hands of persons who might commit such atrocities.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing Missy. May we all resist becoming comfortably numb. Peace.
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