Mass shooting here, guns, guns, bullets, death, blah, blah, blah. It is starting to feel like I'm hearing way too many news stories talking about people (er...rather idiots) shooting people. Almost a month and a half ago a man decided that it would be a great idea to shoot up a movie theatre during the Midnight premiere of Batman. And just yesterday a man who (for lack of a better term and devoid of reason) can only be assumed as crazy shot a man for being evicted from his house!
Before I continue I would like to point out that I full support the right to bear arms and protect one-self from those who seek to harm them. But, in the light of these tragedies one cannot help but wonder: how the hell did all of these seemingly unstable people get ahold of guns? How did a man get a hold of both hand guns and assault riffles without anyone noticing? Isn't that what the CIA is for? I mean where was "Big Brother" when this guy was leaving the un-eraseable digital trail of evidence (we all know what goes on the internet stays on the internet) when this guy was shamelessly purchasing what is surely a threat-level of ammunition?
Furthermore, what would posses a guy in college station to think that killing a man ( and subsequently two others) would save him from eviction? Perhaps, he simply thought that a cosy jail cell would be more enjoyable than homelessness? I mean jail does come with food and it's very own band of built in miscreant friends.
But, I digress back to my original point: what is this world coming to? And what can be done about it? Lately it feels like this country (and all of the human race for that matter) have begun regressing into a more primal state, or, perhaps I am just naive and the world really has always been messed up? I suppose it has and perhaps my neurosis stems from being a child product of the 90's where times were relatively peaceful: the economy was good, we weren't in the midst of two wars, nor an odd rise in gun related deaths and political strife.
The hard truth is that people will always find away to kill people. We have been killing each other since before the gun was even invented and we have been oppressing each other for just as long. But, the question remains would stricter gun laws help the situation? I'm not sure. I definitely feel that civilians don't need access to assault riffles. I'm sorry but I'm not sorry I don't believe you will ever be in a position where you need to shoot someone with a gun that fires off 10 rounds per second (or how ever that works). And I certainly think there needs to be records of how many guns a person owns and how much ammunition they buy. One thing seems certain to me if someone had been monitoring James Holmes ammunition purchase rate this tragedy may have been avoided and if he had not had access to an assault riffle the casualties would have at least been lessened. I'm no expert nor am I naive enough to believe that stricter gun laws will stop people from killing but a few minor adjustments may decrease crime and prevent tragedies. And let's face it isn't the prevention of one less mass tragedy worth that?
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