“This is not the right time to have a dialog about gun
laws.” This is what various television
and political pundits (sometimes those are the same thing) are saying about
starting a national dialog to ban assault weapons. Again.
It apparently wasn’t the right time when the terrible events
at Columbine happened, when the terrible events at Virginia Tech happened, when
the terrible events at Tucson happened, and it still isn’t the right time now
that the terrible events have happened in Aurora, Colorado.
It isn’t the right time when these indescribably terrible
things occur: shouldn’t get emotional. It isn’t the right time when things have been
quiet: don’t want to stir things
up. It isn’t the right time during an
election year, because many who are running for re-election don’t want to incur
the wrath of the rabid gun owners and sellers.
It isn’t the right time when it isn’t an election year, because those
same rabid gun owners and sellers will remember. It isn’t the right time when investigative
reporting confirms that no background checks are required for weapons of any
kind sold at gun shows or on the Internet.
Can it be that our human society has been at war in one
place or another, for one reason or another, for so very long that in many
places in this world, including the USA, we no longer have, in the general
sense, the ability to differentiate between weapons for hunting game and
weapons for hunting people?
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