Flash- Crazy Man Goes Crazy

I’m as appalled as everyone by the senseless shooting in Tucson, but as much as I’d like to blame it all on Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, that’s a putt too far for me.  Civility has long since left the political lexicon. And yes, we need a return to more civility and more respect for people with opposing views- even radical views, but that's a different issue.  Jared Loughner has a history of untreated mental illness.  He’s a sick person. Sick people do crazy things. How he managed to go through life undetected and untreated is yet another issue for discussion in this tragedy.

But let's be frank. There are a lot of crazy people in the world. Politicians and radio talking heads could be blamed for firing them up, but hey, these people are already pretty fired up and ready to commit atrocities. Like all crimes, they need means, motive and opportunity. Their illness is their motive. It's up to the public to deny them the means (guns, bombs, etc) and opportunity ( such as public gatherings). Blaming the shootings on Sarah Palin is a joke. We should cut the Momma Grizzly a little slack. Her target metaphors are no worse than when President Obama said, “… if you want to win a knife fight, bring a gun…” 

What we really need is an adult conversation about gun control and how we can establish limits on what can be purchased.  The second amendment was written when all rifles were single shot muskets. We don't allow fully automatic rifles. Why can't we have protection  to prevent people from purchasing high capacity 30 bullet magazines for pistols? That’s what’s crazy about this tragedy.  Why should any civilian need to kill something 31 times in self-defense? It's time we limited all large capacity ammo  to law enforcement and the military, period.  


When crazy people do crazy things, they’re not in control of their actions, they're just the delivery agent. The gun is the murderer.  The NRA should stop looking at the world through its rectum and start promoting safer gun laws rather fighting every attempt by Congress to improve gun safety. We can’t eliminate crazy people, but we can make the world a little safer by eliminating crazy guns.