chickens coming home to roost

Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Whatever the cause, corpses are made. Quake and other violence-filled entertainments (like telegenic high-tech warfare, as seen on CNN) are not the problems, merely symptoms. If violence is an acceptable substitute for diplomacy, as the Rambouillet charade (the latest incarnation of that ethos; it led to the bombing of Serbia) indicates, then someone, somewhere, will decide that it works for any sort of dispute.

Hence the "take no prisoners" response by Harris and Klebold to the suburban gang wars (a "traditional" form of macho high school violence) in Littleton, and, now, the "I hate Baptists" gunman in Fort Worth. In a catch-as-catch-can moral universe, we proudly defend the morality we make; some of us will defend it to the point of death. Someone else's death.

If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, many of us are dropping the ball, and not just some gun owners fond of "liberty". Deaths are a price we pay for the NRA's cult of "the defense of liberty", a case of absolute freedom corrupting absolutely - how much money and time is spent defending gun ownership compared to teaching what NOT to do with a gun? Which part of "thou shalt not kill" eludes us?

I've joined a pool: if more than ten people are shot by a gunman in Wyoming, I win.

Thanks for dropping by.

Disclaimers:

  1. This is merely an impromptu rant. A reasoned argument would have required much more typing (and thought) than I was prepared to do.
  2. Your Mileage May Vary.
  3. Shut up.

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