Let's get something straight - assault weapons have no value in hunting game, they are made for only one thing, killing people. No person who claims it is a sporting weapon can be taken seriously. Assault weapons are people killers, nothing else. Yeah it may be a great testosterone hit to see the absurd power they have on a range, but if you need to pulverize a block wall, use a sledge hammer. We need, desperately, to control access to these weapons, to make certain ... hell I don't know what to make certain of. Removing assault weapons is a small but necessary step in cutting down the senseless murder in our country.
Before anyone attempts to dismiss my comments let me say I was an NRA member as a teen, an expert shot both then and in my seven years of military service, and a hunter until my early thirties. I learned to shoot from a marine, my father, who gave me a single shot .22 and when I complained about its limitations, said, "If you can't hit your target with one shot, you've got no business shooting at it." I know weapons, and I am not one to blame one on a killing. That said, access to weapons is far too easy in the USA. Every handgun and long gun must be registered at the very least. You all know the things that need to be done. Let's do them before we see another Newtown.
I started this next part a few days before Newtown; a musing about the distant future.
As I, and probably everyone I know, embraced the pattern of 12-12-12, my thoughts drifted to the next time we would have the occasion to mark the pattern of these last twelve years. From 01-01-01 to 12-12-12, each year we have highlighted the pattern in some way. Eighty-eight years will pass before the pattern recurs. I will not see it. Most, if not all, of my grandchildren will not see it; Miranda will be ninety-six and Danny ninety-three, the other three well past the century mark. My great-granddaughter, Suri, will be an old lady of eighty-eight. If they live to see it, what will they see? What kind of world will they live in? Will it be one in which there is true freedom of and from religion, where it is a private choice and not a public weapon? Will it be one where disagreements are settled by dialogue, not murder? Will it be one where quality health care is as much a right as owning a weapon? Will it be one where racial hatred is a subject of history rather than a daily fact? Will it be a world of healthy air and adequate food and water?
Right now it ain't looking so good.
I started this next part a few days before Newtown; a musing about the distant future.
As I, and probably everyone I know, embraced the pattern of 12-12-12, my thoughts drifted to the next time we would have the occasion to mark the pattern of these last twelve years. From 01-01-01 to 12-12-12, each year we have highlighted the pattern in some way. Eighty-eight years will pass before the pattern recurs. I will not see it. Most, if not all, of my grandchildren will not see it; Miranda will be ninety-six and Danny ninety-three, the other three well past the century mark. My great-granddaughter, Suri, will be an old lady of eighty-eight. If they live to see it, what will they see? What kind of world will they live in? Will it be one in which there is true freedom of and from religion, where it is a private choice and not a public weapon? Will it be one where disagreements are settled by dialogue, not murder? Will it be one where quality health care is as much a right as owning a weapon? Will it be one where racial hatred is a subject of history rather than a daily fact? Will it be a world of healthy air and adequate food and water?
Right now it ain't looking so good.
Thank you Tom! -AB
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