coloradokevin
Member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2008
- Messages
- 3,285
Please allow me to be honest here and say that this forum has been giving me some heartburn this week, as I see so many good and decent members grapple with how the gun owning community should respond to the Las Vegas shooting.
That was a tragic and terrible incident, and I think we all feel sorry for the families that lost so much this week. Just about every sane American agrees on those points. I think that's both the beginning and end of what our response to the incident needs to be as members of the gun-owning public.
None of you are responsible for what happened, and no gun or piece of equipment you own is responsible for what happened. Agreeing to further restrictions on your 2nd Amendment rights won't bring back the lives that were lost at the hands of that mad man, nor will it prevent a terrible mass murder from happening in the future. No "compromise" or "common sense solution" actually exists here, because the fault in the system was found in the heart of an evil man, not in the piece of aluminum and plastic that he used to carry out his terrible deeds.
The human capacity to do harm to each other is disappointingly immense, and really knows no bounds. If a gun with a "bump stock" hadn't been available to this shooter, perhaps he'd have used a bomb. If not a bomb, perhaps driving a truck into the crowd would have worked. Or, maybe he could have crashed a Cessna into the crowd (he was a pilot). Maybe he would have even thought of something that none of us ever considered.
All of that aside, it's disgusting that anti-gun lobbyists will use any tragedy as an opportunity to gain traction against gun owners. Not only do they go for the hearts and minds of the general public, they also manage to convince reasonable and law-abiding gun owners that we're somehow at fault in this. We're not. You are not. I am not.
The very first mention I saw of gun control this week came from Mrs. Clinton, when she attempted to spin this tragedy into an argument for keeping sound suppressors as an NFA item. I later saw a news story that was applauding gun owners who were cheerfully giving their collections over to the police at a gun buy back. Then, I talked to a local gun owner I know who found it tasteless that a regular local gun show wasn't being cancelled in light of this shooting.
None of that makes any sense! Stop accepting blame for things that are not your fault. Stop feeling guilty for enjoying a lifestyle that doesn't make sense to some other people. Take care of yourselves, and your fellow man, but stop allowing others to make you feel as if you should be shouldering some of the blame for the actions of a now-dead mass murderer.
That was a tragic and terrible incident, and I think we all feel sorry for the families that lost so much this week. Just about every sane American agrees on those points. I think that's both the beginning and end of what our response to the incident needs to be as members of the gun-owning public.
None of you are responsible for what happened, and no gun or piece of equipment you own is responsible for what happened. Agreeing to further restrictions on your 2nd Amendment rights won't bring back the lives that were lost at the hands of that mad man, nor will it prevent a terrible mass murder from happening in the future. No "compromise" or "common sense solution" actually exists here, because the fault in the system was found in the heart of an evil man, not in the piece of aluminum and plastic that he used to carry out his terrible deeds.
The human capacity to do harm to each other is disappointingly immense, and really knows no bounds. If a gun with a "bump stock" hadn't been available to this shooter, perhaps he'd have used a bomb. If not a bomb, perhaps driving a truck into the crowd would have worked. Or, maybe he could have crashed a Cessna into the crowd (he was a pilot). Maybe he would have even thought of something that none of us ever considered.
All of that aside, it's disgusting that anti-gun lobbyists will use any tragedy as an opportunity to gain traction against gun owners. Not only do they go for the hearts and minds of the general public, they also manage to convince reasonable and law-abiding gun owners that we're somehow at fault in this. We're not. You are not. I am not.
The very first mention I saw of gun control this week came from Mrs. Clinton, when she attempted to spin this tragedy into an argument for keeping sound suppressors as an NFA item. I later saw a news story that was applauding gun owners who were cheerfully giving their collections over to the police at a gun buy back. Then, I talked to a local gun owner I know who found it tasteless that a regular local gun show wasn't being cancelled in light of this shooting.
None of that makes any sense! Stop accepting blame for things that are not your fault. Stop feeling guilty for enjoying a lifestyle that doesn't make sense to some other people. Take care of yourselves, and your fellow man, but stop allowing others to make you feel as if you should be shouldering some of the blame for the actions of a now-dead mass murderer.