Another tragedy, dare I say terrorist attack, and we are treated to another series of hand wringing by pundits and politicians all around. I won’t summarize, it was a terrible day for 9 families and a much larger community.
The Charleston mayor said this, which sparked a predictable series of folks drawing lines in the sand:
“You don’t know what could have been done,” said Joseph P. Riley Jr. (D) when asked whether the shootings could have been prevented.
But he added: “I personally believe there are far too many guns out there, and access to guns, it’s far too easy. Our society has not been able to deal with that yet.”
Set that aside.
Starting tomorrow, all guns suddenly vanish. Poof. Forget about the rights of the people who did nothing wrong for the moment, forget about any argument, rational or otherwise.
Then what happens? Did you solve the problem?
People will still be poor. People will still hate. People will still need care.
I will paraphrase and add to something a colleague said yesterday:
So instead of talking about racism in a meaningful way, we are going to talk about guns and why no one needs one or everyone needs one.
The predictable reaction to tragedies like this just makes me tired in addition to being sad.
We should collectively be better than this.
Earlier it was reported that the gun was a gift from a relative, that’s now been retracted so I have amended this entry and removed that. Facts are important.