For the Love of Guns...

 

All this is so predictable. Another horrible mass shooting by a young, white male. Wait a few months and it will happen again; the response, the same.

Already I have seen the tired argument that if only somebody in that historic church was armed, they could have stopped the assassinations. Right wing radio talkinghead, Michael Savage, raised the question that the government did it. Just another "false flag" operation. And then he said perhaps it was the opiate recovery medication, suboxone, which caused the kid to do it. When in doubt, blame the AMA and psychotropic medications.

In fact, blame everything possible in order to deflect the argument elsewhere. And provide the same old answers: More guns make us safer! Psychotropic medications creates crazed killers! There are gun laws already on the books that would have stopped this! Gun free zones lead to mass shootings!

But never, ever question why a 21 year old, unstable, unemployed, racist kid had a reason to own a lethal, easily concealed, weapon. Never question that the love of guns, the worship of the false Glock Idol, the political power of the NRA—all contribute to this problem.

There was an opportunity to prevent the tragedy in Charleston.

A friend of the shooter actually took Dylann Roof’s weapon when he became concerned that his friend was making bizarre threats. This friend gave the gun back to Roof because the friend was a felon and he couldn’t be found in possession of a gun. In California, under AB 1014, this friend could have called the authorities and reported that Roof was making bizarre lethal threats. The police then could have investigated and taken the weapon. Now that’s a sensible gun law.

But would that friend have actually called the cops? Good question. The NRA used to be an organization that promoted gun safety. Well, by now we certainly should have figured out that some people should not own a gun. Rather than fighting every sensible gun law that is proposed as a threat to the 2^nd Amendment, the NRA could get back into the business of gun education—including when you should call the police and report that a fellow gun owner is acting bizarre and making threats.

Protecting the public by calling the police when someone is acting unstable and making threats is the responsibility of all of us, whether we own guns or not. The NRA certainly could make this part of gun education a higher priority. And they should get out of the way of stopping sensible gun laws.