militiaThis has been a tragic week in America. We all know what happened in Connecticut, how could we not. I was vowed and determined not to add to the cheap shots about gun control that have dominated the media but then I read an article in the Washington Post that floored me. Did you know that there were 13 mass shootings in 2012? I certainly didn’t. In modern America, it seems that unless it’s a school shooting or something that grabs attention like a Batman movie, then it’s just another day at the office. It must be, because this is happening more than once a month and nobody seems overly disturbed by it.

Gun violence does not happen in other countries on the scale it does here and intuitively, we all know that America has a gun control problem. The statistics are out there for everybody to see. They are hard dry facts and they are self-explanatory. Let me repeat what I just said: mass shooting are happening at the rate of more than one a month.

I don’t care if you own a handgun. It’s your business and I honestly don’t care. Now, if you’re a card carrying NRA member who subscribes to the insanity of Charlton Heston’s “cold dead hands” philosophy, then I think you need to see a shrink.  Normal people do not lay awake at night worrying that the government is going to kick in their doors and confiscate their guns. This is not Syria; does personal protection really need to extend to a hidden arsenal of automatic weapons?

Speaking of the NRA, this is an organization that builds its numbers by whipping up fear of something that is non-existent. No government, Democrat or otherwise, has the political will to legislate for any serious gun control in America and they know it. The reality is the NRA has become a very serious business. I mean business in the true sense of the word because for a non-profit organization, the NRA certainly seems to make a lot of money. It does it mostly by preying on other people’s misery and then uses that money to hijack our political system.

I don’t know what the answer to gun violence in America is but I do know that it needs to stop. It’s no good trying to lobby for gun control measures in the wake of a tragedy like Newtown because any legislation will forever carry the stigma of being a knee-jerk reaction. Instead, we need to let the dust settle and allow those in grief to have their peace and privacy. Eventually though, we need to start asking questions of our elected representatives especially those who take NRA money.

It’s time to change the debate in America. Gun control legislation is not about taking freedom away from gun owners, it is about freedom for the majority of Americans to go about their lives in peace. Enough is enough.

 

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