Guns

I wasn't going to write a musing about guns because it can become such an incendiary topic but I just can't sit on the sidelines regarding this issue. The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting was horrific. I cannot get the image of those six and seven year old children being mowed down by a semi automatic assault rifle, some being hit up to eleven times. How do you get that kind of image out of your head?

Finally, after a self imposed silence following the massacre at Sandy Hook, the National Rifle Association's top leader, Wayne LaPierre, said at a Washington news conference yesterday that, quote, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

That may be, but does it have to be with an assault rifle and hundreds of magazine clips of ammunition? I drove past a gun shop in Sioux Falls a couple days ago and the parking lot was packed. I suppose every gun enthusiast in the area was in that shop buying up as many guns as they can, panicked because they think they are going to lose their right to bear arms.

LaPierre wants schools to have armed guards, volunteers if you can imagine. Did you know that over one third of the schools in this country already have uniformed police officers serving as resource officers in schools? Did you know that Columbine had an armed deputy sheriff at the school the day of the shooting there and it still did not deter the massacre?

It amazes me that people cannot stay rational and instead of going "ballistic" and losing their collective rational minds regarding this issue. Now we have a state legislature who wants to introduce a bill allowing school teachers and other personnel to bring guns to schools. I don't think school superintendents and school boards across this country need the NRA or state legislatures to dictate how to deal with gun violence in their schools.

Why did everyone wait with baited breath to hear what the NRA had to say on the massacre at Sandy Hook?

Why do they seem to have such power in this country to even be credible and relevant when speaking about the horror in Newtown, Connecticut?

Why should we have to listen to what LaPierre has to say about what this country should do about school safety while he arrogantly proclaims guns not to be the problem?

Guns are his bread and butter. Guns are his money. LaPierre and his NRA are the least credible spokesman to speak on this issue and La Pierre was entirely self serving.

That press conference yesterday was disgusting and insulting to the American public and the grieving families in Newtown, Connecticut.

There is no rational reason for any person to own a semi-automatic assault rifle and magazine clips that spit out 30 to 100 hundred rounds of ammunition in a split second ripping bodies apart as people are mowed down. It's excessive, it's overkill and both must be banned. Why can't it be as simple as that?