No need to go over the details of yesterday's shooting. Aaron Alexis, former Navy reserve member, killed thirteen people at the Navy Yard, and once again the national psyche was jarred into thinking about just what is wrong with us all. This is happening far too often to be chalked up to "oh I guess he just cracked under pressure..."Right after the massacre at Newtown, Connecticut, there was a hue and cry to pass new gun control legislation. I have always been a proponent of gun control, but now I'm starting to wonder what good it does. After all, it's against the law in DC to strut around with a gun, and certainly against the law to shoot a dozen people to death, but that doesn't seem to stop anyone.
And there are people who like to hunt, and people who feel better protected by having firearms in the house, and why penalize those who own and use their pistols and rifles legally?
However. If you saw the news, you saw a booking photo of Alexis from 2010, when he was arrested in Texas for shooting off a gun...through the ceiling of his apartment. And you read that he was arrested in Seattle in 2004 for shooting out the tires of someone's car in what Alexis described as an "anger-filled blackout."
So, does anyone see any reason why Texas authorities failed to lock him up and keep him locked up for a long, long time?
That's the form of gun control I now support...taking people who use guns illegally - especially those who do so twice - and controlling them by putting them in prison.
It's like when you were a kid and your parents told you if they caught you sneaking out at night and you know that they grounded your older brother for six months before for the same offense. You're not going to risk the penalty when you know it will be severe and unforgiving.
There has to be an answer somewhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment