Guns Used in Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre
“In addition to the gunman, blood is on the hands of members of Congress and the Connecticut legislators who voted to ban guns from all schools in Connecticut (and most other states). They are the ones who made it illegal to defend oneself with a gun in a school when that is the only effective way of resisting a gunman,” says Larry Pratt.
During the show, Pratt resisted the proposition of legislation for an assault weapons ban. But why? Did everybody forget that this assault weapons ban legislature is not new? That at one time it did exist and was signed into law in 1994 by former President Bill Clinton? The ban lasted for 10 years until President Bush, who promised to renew the ban during his 2004 bid for office, inevitably let it expire.
Larry Pratt fought against this potentially imminent ban by arguing the necessity of such weapons, “To take on our government. [And this] government has gone overboard.” That it’s time to take action “when elections are stolen.”
Translation: he pretty much publicly aired the fear of many staunch supporters on gun rights, a fear of some sort of martial law 28 Days Later zombie apocalypse. It’s ironic. The Bush era, the era that allowed the assault weapon ban to expire, also happens to be the era that ushered this country into paranoia through a constant state of fear mongering (can anyone say “color-coded terror alerts”?), acceptable forms of segregation and racism (cough, cough, at the airport for example), and gangland style violence that has rapidly made its way into our country’s schools.
We haven’t been the same country since.
Thinking about all the small children we lost on Friday; I began thinking about what it was like to be that age; what were my thoughts and feelings during that time? It was 1990 and right before Christmas. My kindergarten class was busy putting together care packages and Christmas decorations for American soldiers; soldiers who were fighting a war in Iraq. At he time I remember how odd the word Iraq was and could barely comprehend what was going on. Little did I know that even when this war with Iraq was “over,” the war still would never be over and over 20 years later it is still ongoing. Sure, we’ve technically left Iraq, a country we invaded for questionable reasons after terrorist from a different country (Afghanistan) highjacked several planes and flew two of them into the World Trade Center’s twin towers killing thousands of Americans within minutes.
On that day, the terrorists carried out their goal to destroy America and they now that it is over 10 years later, I can tell you that they were successful. Since 9/11, they may have not initiated any more attacks on American soil that even come close to the devastation on that day.
Bin Laden wanted to destroy us financially and aimed for the two buildings on Wall Street that best represented the America’s wealth. Some people think he knew what would ensue as a result. Of course, destroying those two buildings and thousands of lives on that day alone would not destroy us financially, but the war that it would drag us into did. We’re we so predictable a people?
Few terrorists have come here to successfully massacre mass amounts of our people since that day, but maybe that is because they don’t need to. We are killing each other and we are killing ourselves both literally and figuratively ever since. How easy it must be for them to kick back and watch on the news as we do their work for them.
Killing each other is right.. I understand about the mental illness but if I hear one more person blame it on that and not on guns… well I will scream