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osodecanelaAnother day, another mass shooting.
This time it was yet another disgruntled previous employee, resulting in a dozen people dead & a dozen grief stricken families in mourning. The man resigned his position in the morning. Hours later he was back at his workplace, slaughtering his coworkers. For once, it wasn’t someone who’d been fired.
I swear if I see one more public official wring their hands whilst saying, “we are holding the victims/families/community in our thoughts and prayers,” I could easily go postal myself. The expression “our thoughts and prayers” has become synonymous with, “& that’s all we’re going to do”. My saving grace in that is I don’t own a gun. Never have. Never will.
I simply don’t get this country. The dozen victims from Friday died at the hands of a man with a 45 caliber weapon that had an expanded magazine. It wasn’t an ordinary pistol. It wasn’t a revolver. It was yet another weapon that had been modified to allow it to become a small ‘weapon of mass distruction‘. You don’t need weaponry like this for self protection. You certainly don’t need weapons like this to hunt, unless your prey is human.
I simply do not understand the mentality in this country. A mass shooting happened in a grade school Scotland, and the law changed. I mass shooting happened in a school in Australia, and the law changed. A mass shooting happened in two mosques in New Zealand just this spring, & in less than two weeks, the law was changed, regarding firearms of this type. Meanwhile, it’s over 20 years since Columbine and little is different today, than when that happened.
Do you know someone whose life was cut short by a random gun violence? I do. In 2012, an old friend from San Francisco was gunned down as he exited his car, near his home in Baltimore. Peter was a researcher at the NIH. For people in the developed world outside of US, most do not personally know someone who died in random gun violence. Not so with this country. If you’re a medical provider working in any urban emergency room in the country, likely you’ve seen a victim of gun violence within the last month, if not the last week. If you’re working in a regional trauma center, likely you’ve seen a gun shot victim in the last 72 hours.
In 2017, just under 40,000 Americans died from gun shot wounds. That’s 109 people per day. That’s not all gun victims, just the ones that died of their wounds. If you consider non lethal gunshot wounds, add another 75-80,000 victims annually. Now consider the families and friends of all those victims, who’re left to deal with the emotional and physical aftermath of that gun violence. The numbers are staggering. No wonder support for sensible gun laws exists in communities across the country.
The second amendment to the constitution talks about a “well regulated militia”. What about Friday’s murders in Virginia Beach was well regulated? What about the Parkland HS killings or the Pulse Nightclub shooting or the New Town Grade School massacre was well regulated? For how long will protecting the financial interests of gun and ammunition manufacturers be more politically acceptable than protecting the safety of the community at large?
This time it was yet another disgruntled previous employee, resulting in a dozen people dead & a dozen grief stricken families in mourning. The man resigned his position in the morning. Hours later he was back at his workplace, slaughtering his coworkers. For once, it wasn’t someone who’d been fired.
I swear if I see one more public official wring their hands whilst saying, “we are holding the victims/families/community in our thoughts and prayers,” I could easily go postal myself. The expression “our thoughts and prayers” has become synonymous with, “& that’s all we’re going to do”. My saving grace in that is I don’t own a gun. Never have. Never will.
I simply don’t get this country. The dozen victims from Friday died at the hands of a man with a 45 caliber weapon that had an expanded magazine. It wasn’t an ordinary pistol. It wasn’t a revolver. It was yet another weapon that had been modified to allow it to become a small ‘weapon of mass distruction‘. You don’t need weaponry like this for self protection. You certainly don’t need weapons like this to hunt, unless your prey is human.
I simply do not understand the mentality in this country. A mass shooting happened in a grade school Scotland, and the law changed. I mass shooting happened in a school in Australia, and the law changed. A mass shooting happened in two mosques in New Zealand just this spring, & in less than two weeks, the law was changed, regarding firearms of this type. Meanwhile, it’s over 20 years since Columbine and little is different today, than when that happened.
Do you know someone whose life was cut short by a random gun violence? I do. In 2012, an old friend from San Francisco was gunned down as he exited his car, near his home in Baltimore. Peter was a researcher at the NIH. For people in the developed world outside of US, most do not personally know someone who died in random gun violence. Not so with this country. If you’re a medical provider working in any urban emergency room in the country, likely you’ve seen a victim of gun violence within the last month, if not the last week. If you’re working in a regional trauma center, likely you’ve seen a gun shot victim in the last 72 hours.
In 2017, just under 40,000 Americans died from gun shot wounds. That’s 109 people per day. That’s not all gun victims, just the ones that died of their wounds. If you consider non lethal gunshot wounds, add another 75-80,000 victims annually. Now consider the families and friends of all those victims, who’re left to deal with the emotional and physical aftermath of that gun violence. The numbers are staggering. No wonder support for sensible gun laws exists in communities across the country.
The second amendment to the constitution talks about a “well regulated militia”. What about Friday’s murders in Virginia Beach was well regulated? What about the Parkland HS killings or the Pulse Nightclub shooting or the New Town Grade School massacre was well regulated? For how long will protecting the financial interests of gun and ammunition manufacturers be more politically acceptable than protecting the safety of the community at large?
