As much as I like to exercise my meager creative muscle, I can't think of anything except for this latest massacre in Oregon.
In Roseburg, Oregon, at Umpqua Community College, TEN more people have been murdered. That's TEN more friends, sons, daughters, siblings, cousins, significant others, teammates, mentors. The numbers of people reported killed doesn't tell the whole story.
Here are some numbers, for those that need to quantify horror. Since 2005 there have been 24 mass shootings. 24, including today's. Including today, 223 people have been killed. That's an average of 9.291666 dead at the hands of people who had access to all sorts of different weapons, including automatic an semi-automatic firearms, as well as mega-clips that can hold somewhere around 30 bullets. The number of people injured in these events is just about equal at 210. That's 433 people whose families, friends, teachers and colleagues whose lives have changed. Thousands of people close to, acquainted with, in classes with, working with or doing business with victims of those with whatever agenda may have driven them to think that killing as many poor souls they can will cure whatever they feel ails their worlds.
What do we do? How do we attempt to, at the very least, mitigate the inborn terrorism our lack of comprehensive gun control laws has bred? More guns? Arm every man woman and child with a weapon? That seems a tad exaggerated, but one of the most powerful and influential organizations that lobbies our elected "leaders" seems to think that if more people had guns there would be fewer people killed by . . . guns! I can't even respond to that anymore, for the skewed logic behind that type of thinking is perplexing at best.
It's been proven in numerous American states, and countries around the world, that quite the opposite is true, that FEWER guns yields FEWER people killed by guns. Look it up, these are facts that are readily accessible to anyone with a computer and a desire for the truth.
Thy say that if gun ownership is criminalized, then only criminals will have guns. The end game here is NOT to outlaw gun ownership altogether. It's to create viable legislation that makes it less easy to buy a deadly weapon. Laws that will do realistic background checks, and that will create a database of as many guns as possible that are properly licensed and registered. We do it with cars, we can do it with pistols, shotguns, rifles, assault weapons etc. We can do it at gun shows, gun shops, department stores. Training and testing should be mandatory. We do it with motorcycles. The point is, nobody is looking to ban guns, just ensure as best we can that only those responsible of us can actually own one, or two, or however many they want, but they need to be vetted and tested.
What about the mentally ill? Well, wouldn't you agree that anyone that would perpetrate such horrific acts are, in fact, mentally ill? Not necessarily schizophrenic, not necessarily psychotic, psychopaths or sociopaths, but possibly severely imbued within the black hole of clinical depression. It could be any number of etiologies at play, but the expression "mentally ill" is broad and deep. More stringent regulations will help to keep people suffering in a lonely world of confusion, of feeling as if they don't belong, from potentially acquiring the things they feel will help them show the world they exist, or to make whatever point they feel needs to be made.
Those that point to only mental illness, and claim that, regardless, gun legislation of any kind will not prevent these sorts of things from occurring. Okay, let's assume that's factual. I don't recall any members of congress trying to push through meaningful laws that will help recognize and treat mental illness, so how can anyone take these people seriously when they flap their jaws and spew their nonsensical and politically biased claptrap.
Let us, all of us, take a look at what is really going on here, and work together to use our common sense and rational intellect to end the madness.
