femurphy77
Grandmaster
I know I'm largely preaching to the choir here but I just had to get this off my chest. The following text is a post I made after one of the many news stories about the shooting yesterday. I'm not a historian, scholar or debater. Just some random thoughts.
Prior to 1968 anyone could purchase a machine gun or any of the "assault rifles" of the day. You didn't need a license, you didn't have to fill out a form. It was a simple as picking up a Sears, or Montgomery Wards catalog, or going down to your local Western Auto. They were available thru ads in the back of many contemporary magazines, the only admonishment was that "You must be over 18 to order this weapon, if you aren't over 18 have your parents order it for you."
Even after 1968 and into the early '80's it was quite common to see hunting rifles and shotguns hanging in the back windows of pickups parked in high school parking lots all across our country.
And yet with all of this easy acces to firearms, the school mass shooter didn't become a common occurence until 1999 when two disenfranchised loners introduced the idea to many sick individuals since then.
What has changed about our society? Well for one religion and morality have taken a back seat to the "me first" generations. We've also see several generations now that have been taught that everybody gets a trophy. We're trying to dumb down our schools to the lowest common denominator. We're more worried about a childs self esteem than helping them understand that you DON'T always win. We don't teach them that there are consequences for your actions.
What eles has changed? We now have some of the strictect gun laws our country has ever seen. We have several cities and states that have defacto gun bans in spite of Supreme Court rulings and the guaranteed protections of the Constitution.
Don't you think it odd that these very cities and states have some of the highest numbers of gun crime?
Look at Mexico, almost impossible for a citizen to legally own a gun and yet their gun related murder rate continues to climb thru the roof. And before you say that those guns are coming from the United States, do your homework. I'm sure there is a light trade in weapons from the U.S. but the majority of the heavy weapons; the fully automatic machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, anti-personal mines and others come from their southern neighbors.
So before you make a knee-jerk reaction and scream "We need more laws!", think about this: Isn't murder already illegal? Rape? Assault? Robbery? Has that stopped anybody?
Stop focusing on the tool and focus on the sick, cowardly individual. What do all of the recent mass shooters have in common besides their tool of choice? I see at least one thing, a generation brought up believing that everything should just be handed to them and not being taught how to deal with disappointment and letdown because mommy and daddy wanted to protect their self esteem.
Rant mode off.
Prior to 1968 anyone could purchase a machine gun or any of the "assault rifles" of the day. You didn't need a license, you didn't have to fill out a form. It was a simple as picking up a Sears, or Montgomery Wards catalog, or going down to your local Western Auto. They were available thru ads in the back of many contemporary magazines, the only admonishment was that "You must be over 18 to order this weapon, if you aren't over 18 have your parents order it for you."
Even after 1968 and into the early '80's it was quite common to see hunting rifles and shotguns hanging in the back windows of pickups parked in high school parking lots all across our country.
And yet with all of this easy acces to firearms, the school mass shooter didn't become a common occurence until 1999 when two disenfranchised loners introduced the idea to many sick individuals since then.
What has changed about our society? Well for one religion and morality have taken a back seat to the "me first" generations. We've also see several generations now that have been taught that everybody gets a trophy. We're trying to dumb down our schools to the lowest common denominator. We're more worried about a childs self esteem than helping them understand that you DON'T always win. We don't teach them that there are consequences for your actions.
What eles has changed? We now have some of the strictect gun laws our country has ever seen. We have several cities and states that have defacto gun bans in spite of Supreme Court rulings and the guaranteed protections of the Constitution.
Don't you think it odd that these very cities and states have some of the highest numbers of gun crime?
Look at Mexico, almost impossible for a citizen to legally own a gun and yet their gun related murder rate continues to climb thru the roof. And before you say that those guns are coming from the United States, do your homework. I'm sure there is a light trade in weapons from the U.S. but the majority of the heavy weapons; the fully automatic machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, anti-personal mines and others come from their southern neighbors.
So before you make a knee-jerk reaction and scream "We need more laws!", think about this: Isn't murder already illegal? Rape? Assault? Robbery? Has that stopped anybody?
Stop focusing on the tool and focus on the sick, cowardly individual. What do all of the recent mass shooters have in common besides their tool of choice? I see at least one thing, a generation brought up believing that everything should just be handed to them and not being taught how to deal with disappointment and letdown because mommy and daddy wanted to protect their self esteem.
Rant mode off.
