A Gun in Every Pot

amaditalks:

Wayne LaPierre of the NRA says that the answer to school shootings is an armed police officer in every school in America, and Congress should ensure that this happens when kids come back from winter break in January.

Because cops are bulletproof, apparently, and are never shot. And a shooter with an AR-15 in his hand, finger on the trigger, will be stopped by a cop with a .9 millimeter in a holster who doesn’t know the asshole is coming.

And schools are the only place that’s vulnerable. Tell that to the Sikhs in Oak Creek, the moviegoers in Aurora, the shoppers in Clackamas, the staff and patients at the hospital facility here in Pittsburgh, Gabrielle Giffords and her constituents outside a grocery store. The women at the LA Fitness in Bridgeville, PA. The people at Tennessee Valley UU Church. The lunch eaters at the McDonalds in San Diego. The soldiers at Fort Hood.

Because cops never open fire on unarmed civilians who they “think” have guns. Because shootouts between cops and criminals never kill bystanders. (Who in LaPierre’s construction, would be children.) Because cops are inherently trustworthy and their presence in a school wouldn’t escalate the potential for school violence to turn deadly. (Where there’s a gun, a gun can be used.)

LaPierre also blamed violence not on guns, but on television, movies and video games, specifically naming “Mortal Kombat” in which none of the characters have a gun.

And LaPierre specifically scapegoated people with mental illnesses, calling for a national database of people with mental illnesses. No national database of guns or gun owners, but of those of us with mental illnesses. Never mind that people struggling with depression who can’t get out of bed don’t kill people. Just ignore the fact that two soldiers with PTSD commit suicide every day, on average, but so far, none have shot up a crowd of innocent people. Forget that people with schizophrenia, widely thought dangerous, are actually exponentially more likely to be victims of crime rather than perpetrators. And easily, casually, thoughtlessly set aside the fact that the vast, vast majority of gun crimes are not committed by a person with a mental illness.

Where there’s a gun, there’s a gun that can be used. Increasing the number of guns in vulnerable places (which would be, we’ve seen, as 2012 has shown us, is everywhere) only increases the likelihood of someone being shot there, and that’s not an improvement. Not by any means.

This is the NRA’s “substantial offering” to solve gun violence. This is the same old rhetoric they’ve been pushing for the entirety of their existence. It is anti-science, anti-statistic, anti-factual nonsense.

It’s time to be serious — which starts with no longer letting an organization that represents 1.3% of Americans dictate public policy on this issue.

Do you really think gun control will solve this? Like you said, it usually isn’t a mentally ill person committing these crimes - it’s usually criminals. Well, guess what - criminals will get their hands on guns whether or not there are gun control laws. The same way they get everything else that is “controlled” by the government. Criminalizing something doesn’t make it go away. Drug control didn’t solve the “drug problem” and gun control won’t solve the so-called “gun problem.” It will just take guns out of the hands of citizens who could make a difference. And guess what - having a teacher or administrator in the school with a weapon - or just a theatergoer in Aurora with a weapon - would have averted some of the deaths. Not all of them, by any means, but definitely some of them.

Adam Lanza’s mother and classmates all knew that he had a mental disorder. And guess what? They left him to deal with it on his own. She left her weapons somewhere he could get them, whether they were out in the open, or locked up in a cabinet and he had the combination - she neglected to keep them away from him.One of his classmates tweeted, “As horrible as this was, I can’t say I am surprised.” That’s the problem here. The guns aren’t the problem. Plenty of people own assault rifles and don’t go shooting places up, and don’t leave them out for their troubled children to take.

I’m not saying there should be a mental illness database - that’s terrible. But people with mental illness need somewhere they can go for help, because the outlets available clearly aren’t helping if everyone can recognize that someone has a problem and does nothing to help them.

posted 5 months ago · 581 notes (1elliefredricksen © amaditalks)
#adam lanza #sandy hook #gun control

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