Here is a tragic suicide,made more horrible by first killing four other people who deserved to make their own choices about life, and happiness, and who deserved to go about their lives in relative safety from gun violence.
Gun violence is wrong, gun violence is bad, and gun violence like this doesn't happen in comparable, developed parts of the world day after day, week after week the way it does here. Why? Fewer guns is why, but also very different attitudes about why we have and need and how we use guns. Our guns AND our gun culture kill people, in the ultimate violation of their rights - death and injury from assholes with guns, jerks who believe they just had to have guns rather than settling their conflicts WITHOUT guns.
It is our fundamental THINKING and belief about guns that is at the foundation of what is wrong with weapons when people subsequently act.
WE ARE NOT MORE FREE JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE MORE GUNS! THAT IS ONE OF THE STUPIDEST IDEAS ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, SOMEWHERE BEHIND THE WORLD IS FLAT, AND PEOPLE LIVING IN OR ON THE MOON UNAIDED.
From MSNBC.com :
5 dead in shooting at health spa outside Atlanta
Five people were killed in an apparent murder-suicide Tuesday night at a Norcross, Ga., health spa, northeast of Atlanta, local police said.
On arrival at the scene, officers found four people dead, Norcross police captain Brian Harr told Reuters. A fifth victim was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Harr said they believe the shooter was among the dead.
State investigators were called in to assist local police at Su Jung Health Sauna in the 6000 block of Buford Highway, local media said.
Norcross Police Chief Warren Summers said the shootings appeared to be a murder-suicide, television station WSB reported.
Norcross is about 20 miles northeast of Atlanta.
Gun violence is wrong, gun violence is bad, and gun violence like this doesn't happen in comparable, developed parts of the world day after day, week after week the way it does here.
ReplyDeleteYou are right DG, we do have more gun violence, however, as I have pointed out to you several times, we have Less overall violence. Does this mean that we are a less violent society? One wouldn't think so, since we also have a higher murder rate. If we're not less violent than other countries, but have less violent crime, and more guns, it would seem that more guns equal less crime. Thanks for helping me point that out.
WE ARE NOT MORE FREE JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE MORE GUNS!
How do you know that? UK has restrictive gun laws but subjects don't have the right to remain silent. CA has restrictive gun laws and their police can arbitrarily decide what firearms are prohibited. AU has restrictive gun laws and can arbitrarily decide what's prohibited AND their police are trying to require that anyone questioned by police must give a statement. Gun restrictions seem to go hand in hand with infringements on rights. We have more guns and more freedoms. Yep, more guns equals "MORE FREE", thanks for helping point that out as well.
We don't have LESS overall violence. That is bullshit.
DeleteGuns do not make us more free. That is a stupid contention. Just because other nations, using THEIR right to legislate through representative governments, make different choices doesn't make them less free. It means they have the same freedom to make their laws that we have here, and they can change them to suit their own beliefs and the facts of their crime rates.
What they do have is less death and injury from guns; that in and of itself makes them more free. No one is trampling their civil rights to life, liberty and the safety that is essential to being free to act and think independently of intrusion and intimidation.
dog gone wrote,
ReplyDelete"...who deserved to go about their lives in relative safety from gun violence."
How about my right to go about my life in relative safety from violent crime? Law enforcement, cell phones, and surveillance cameras sure as hell are not doing it. If they were, we wouldn't have endured 1.2 million violent crimes in 2010. Unfortunately, violent crime happens in our country. Wishing it away is not effective.
Taking away my option to defend my family with a firearm in exchange for some unknown reduction of the 1500 or so citizens who annually die from accidental gunshots or criminal gunfire is not a good trade off.
Yup, you can have your gun just so long as it doesn't do any more harm to others than....cell phones and surveillance cameras.
DeleteYou're welcome to use less lethal force though.
Happily, as you all like to point out, that crime rate is declining - and it is going down just as fast or faster in areas with fewer firearms or more regulated firearms.
"WE ARE NOT MORE FREE JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE MORE GUNS!"
ReplyDelete