Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Sunday, June 12, 2016

On Some Level We Are A Sick Nation

We live in a time of wonder and relative peace.  Crime is down.  We are currently not fighting any real "wars."  Medicine proceeds to provide cures to fatal diseases.  We do not face famine or want.

But we have become paralyzed in the face of guns and the gun lobby and the gun fetishists.  That asshole in Orlando should not have been able to buy a gun.  The other day, Obama was doing a town hall and someone asked him about "taking away guns."  Obama responded that he was in the situation room and realized he could put someone on the No-Fly list, but he couldn't stop that person from buying guns.  Lots of guns.

The asshole in Florida was known to have flirted with radical Islam and was known to be an angry abusive person.  He beat his first wife.  This is not someone who should be able to buy guns.  Any guns, much less the semi-automatic weapon he used to mow down people last night.

Does anyone really think that a universal database would really have impinged on law-abiding gun owners?  I need a license to drive a car, but literally anyone can buy an arsenal of weaponry that would make George Washington blanch with fear and disgust.

So, to all the politicians who are offering their "thoughts and prayers" but won't do a fucking thing to stop the flood of military-grade weaponry onto our streets: Fuck you.

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