Massacre at Navy Yard Again Shows Need for Strict Gun Control

 

One of the biggest error made by the Founding Fathers was including the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the U. S. Constitution or at least not adding very limiting language.  Despite America's transformation from a rural semi-wilderness nation where guns were needed for hunting food and protection against raiding native America attacks to a modern developed nation where few need a gun for any reason other than to compensate for fears of inadequate penis size or out of racist fears about "dangerous black men," the Second Amendment continues to be applied in a manner that allows an ongoing slaughter in America.  Yes, I am virulently anti-gun and in my view anyone who claims they need a gun for "protection" is either a cretin or a lunatic.  The presence of guns in homes and society increases danger rather than lessens it. Yesterday's shooting spree in the Washington Naval Yard underscores that severe limits on gun ownership are needed.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post editorial on the issue:

FOR ALL the unknowns about Monday’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, there was a nauseating familiarity to the unfolding events: the witness accounts of chaos and fear; the plea from officials for the public’s help; the number of dead revised upward and then revised upward again.

we are confronting another mass shooting, and today it happened on a military installation in our nation’s capital,” said President Obama. Another mass shooting. Again, again, again.

This time, at least 12 people were killed when, for unknown reasons — as if there ever could be reason — a gunman opened fire on workers hurrying to start a new week at the venerable military complex in Southeast Washington. About eight other people, including at least one police officer, were injured in the 8:15 a.m. incident in Building 197, which houses the Naval Sea Systems Command. Once again, Americans silently extended sympathy to the families of those so senselessly killed. 

How did he acquire his weapons (an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol were reportedly found on him), and how did he bring them onto a gated facility?

Life does go on, through Columbine in 1999, through Virginia Tech in 2007, through Sandy Hook in 2012. Each atrocity provides a jolt to the nation and then recedes with little effect, until the next unimaginable event occurs, except each time a little more imaginable. Everything was supposed to change after a man with a semiautomatic weapon mowed down 20 elementary school children in their classrooms last December. But for the politicians, nothing changed. Now, another massacre, another roster of funerals. Again, again, again.

Guns only cause death and mayhem.  No one needs one despite the NRA/gun manufacturer propaganda to the contrary.  I'm sorry, but I have zero respect for gun owners. Absolutely none.