For those of you who are complaining I am "censoring" you I need you to understand something;
We will get NOWHERE with this discussion if we try and debate guns. We will not. This thread will meltdown and then it closes and we have no discussion.
I want you to answer yes or no to a hypothetical question.
Would there have been a school shooting had someone been able to step in, get this guy some help, perhaps intense in-patient therapy of some sort so that all the feelings of anger, hatred, and wanting to get even are eventually replaced with an understanding that he did not need to kill anyone? Yes or No?
Let me answer that for you. NO there would not have been a school shooting.
The real discussion is WHY. Not the method. Believe me, if guns were not available you would still have angry guys like this one. Remember Timothy McVeigh?
How hard would it be to drive a car onto a school sidewalk and kill a bunch of people? How hard would it be to make a bomb from directions found on the internet? How about
stabbing and killing 7 children?
My point is you have to deal with the WHY are people picking up guns to kill innocent people?
The question is WHY. Not why guns?
Listen I am not talking about someone who picks up a gun in anger and kills someone or uses a gun for an armed robbery. For those type of situations yes, it would be wonderful if that person did not have a gun. I get that and I am all for logical gun control.
I'm am talking about what we are seeing with respect to this discussion. We are seeing the well thought out, well planned, execution of innocent people. This time it was with a gun.
I have been doing this a long time. I know what happens when we try and open up a topic where no one will change anyone's mind.
For those of you who think I am a gun advocate, you are wrong. Just the opposite. It is obscene we allow people to buy AK=47's. If someone told me that if I turned in my gun then others would and our gun problem would be under control I would do it in a heartbeat.
Why was this guy so angry? How could he have been stopped? Take the gun out of his hands and replace it with a bomb, a truck, a knife attack, poisoning food or water, whatever the way he chooses to deliver death is not what matters. What matters is the WHY????
If you took all the guns away this person would still be angry and would find another way to kill a big amount of innocent people. If you took away this person's anger and hatred and/or mental illness then no one would have been killed.
In closing, I want to say I know this seems like a simplistic way of looking at the situation. I do realize there are times when you give someone all the help they need and it still isn't enough. They are still a great danger to others. In those situations, the person either needs to be locked up or make damn sure they have NOTHING they can use to harm anyone including guns, knives, vehicles, poison, and the list goes on and on. It is almost an impossible situation to try and contain. I don't know the answer.
Thank you,
Tricia