I agree strongly with New York [City] Mayor Michael Bloomberg coming out against the leading cause of gun violence. The mayor opposes the wake of terror the [jerk] in Denver caused by using his assault weapon to assault people as well as the credo we are powerless to guarantee life, liberty, or any pursuit of happiness too many embace.
Why are there so many heinous mass killings in big gun rights states and less so in gun control blue states?
Maybe I am wrong but mass shootings at Columbine in April 1999, church shootings in Texas in 1999, 2010, 2011, the Fort Hood massacre in 2009, the Waco and Branch Davidian-ATF mess in 1993, Virginia Tech in 2007, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and the Randy Weaver-ATF showdown in the Idaho Panhandle at Ruby Ridge in 1992 all speak volumes.
Go back even further to the University of Texas tower shooter in 1966 or the Orangeburg massacre in South Carolina in 1968. It seems to be a red state regular event.
And anarchist crazies abound now in Montana, Arizona and Texas. Red states all.
And let’s not forget the eight-foot fenced canned hunting farms in all those red states too. Apparently nature is too much of a challenge and these hunters need guarantees.
Exactly why did the gun lobby even oppose encrypting ammunition with serial numbers to allow law enforcement to trace the ammunition’s buyer in California?
And now University of Chicago political science profesor Mearsheimer is using the NRA’s gun rights logic to justify nuclear arms for Iran! “It would bring stability to the region” he says. When does this lunacy end?
Locally I applaud the eight-foot-high barred fence walls now surrounding the new additions at Hemet High School. That is right down the street from where three kids were shot by a drunken San Jacinto 18-year-old one year ago at my tenant’s block party on Stetson at Columbia. Another first-offender sentenced to 13 years. Allegedly.
Forty percent of all arm sales are at gun shows. This needs to stop.
Why not pass a “big gun sin tax”? Charge an extra $500 per firearm and reintroduce the oversized magazine ban that expired in 2004. Do something, even if it’s wrong.
Isn’t the purpose of government to do for us what we can’t do ourselves?
Well, apparently we can’t stop arming miscreants with assault weapons. So we’re left with the option of arming only miscreants like we do now, arming everyone all the time or no one at all. What else can it be?
It’s time for common sense. Or more idiotic NRA soundbites until the next massacre.
Mike Reno
Pine Cove
