Bang!

Like most Americans, I was appalled - though certainly not surprised- by the recent  massacre at Newtown.  Why should anyone be shocked when a military-style assault weapon is used effectively for the exact purpose for which it was designed - to spray deadly lead over a wide area in a very short period of time?  And why should anyone be astonished that a mentally unstable person would commit an act of violence?

I ask these questions rhetorically, of course, as I recognize that the mutilated bodies of five and six year old school children is something that even our violence soaked culture cannot easily accept.

Still, the simple fact of the matter remains that the slaughter at the schoolhouse in Newtown will be repeated in one variation or other - over and over again - so long as the nation remains awash in guns.

I take little comfort in the most recent gun control proposals.  Not that they are bad.  They should be passed by Congress and signed into law. There is no doubt they would save lives.  But with tens of thousands of gun deaths a year the carnage will continue largely unabated even if ALL the mooted measures are adopted - and they won't be.

The best my own Democratic Senator could do was mumble something about the mentally ill on his Facebook page.  He's up for reelection next year and scared to death of the NRA, of course.

Indeed, there is a chance that at the end of the day the mentally ill could be the big losers in this so-called debate.  Some may well lose their liberty in a very real sense - an irony that I'm confident would be lost on those who cannot count beyond "two" as far as the Bill of Rights are concerned.

And speaking of mental illness, there was an interesting article in Salon this morning, 'Religious states are also the unhappiest', which notes that in 2006 approximately 14% of my fellow Americans were prescribed anti-depressants.  One would presume that only a small fraction of these sad citizens are truly a danger to themselves or others; but it does point out the absurdity of the suggestion that the solution to gun violence is to simply keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.

Just exactly who might that be?

What about alcohol?  You show me a man (or woman) with a snoot-full of a six-pack of Miller Genuine Draft and a couple of shots of Wild Turkey and I will show you a man (or woman) who should not be in possession of a gun. 

Guns ARE the problem, kids.