Stop the Insanity

So the Events over the weekend have me thinking. And then something I was told on Monday night made it worse. James, my 6 year old son, was telling me how they were practicing a lock down drill at school in case of an attack like Columbine or New Life. James is in Kindergarten.

Then this morning in the paper I read an article detailing how the New Life killer bought all of his weapons legally, including 2 assault rifles, only one of which he used in the attacks. Thank you NRA and George Bush for ending the Assault rifle ban. The Omaha Mall shooter was also carrying an Assault rifle, an Ak-47 to be precise. Again thank you George Bush.

When is this all going to stop? What is it going to take for things to change so that things like this don't happen anymore? So that people can attend church without fear. So that children can attend school with only the normal childhood fears of bullies, gym class and tests.

First, a substantive immediate change is to reinstitute the Assault weapon ban, so that no one can gain access to these weapons without being a member of law enforcement or military or theft. There is no reasonable justification for owning an assault rifle in my opinion. Ideally I would implement the Lynyrd Skynyrd solution:

"So why don't we dump 'em people
To the bottom of the sea "

Second, we need to address mental health as a culture. We need to remove the stigma. And we need to provide funding for reasonable facilities so that people who are mentally ill have a place to go and get help. I am not talking about a return to the dreadful mental health facilities of the past century. But there needs to be an alternative location for these people. And have that alternative be decent enough that parents and families don't feel like they are committing their loved ones to a fate worse than death.

I have a number of other thoughts on this but I will leave it at these for now. I think these are the 2 most important lessons we can learn from the events of the last week. And if we don't learn those lessons and take action as a society New Life and Omaha will not be the end.

Brady Campaign

Go here to sign the petition and send an e-mail to the President, Congress etc. to reinstate the Assault weapon ban.