Posted this on my Facebook page courtesy of a friend and got quite a bit of debate going on:
To everyone who is calling for stricter gun laws in light of the tragedy in Tucson, may I offer this little tidbit: If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk, and spoons make people fat! Remember: Hold the person accountable for their actions, not the means they chose to utilize!!!
If you want to see all the comments check it out.
Arizona is one of only three states that do not require a license to carry a concealed weapon, I think the state has some responsibility in this tragedy. CT (where I live) requires I take a gun safety course, have my finger prints taken and sent to the State Police to make sure I am not a felon (felons don’t get guns LEGALLY in CT) then I get the permit. It takes between 4 to 6 weeks, which would certainly be a cooling off period if someone was pissed off enough and had no impulse control.
The young man who committed the horrific crime in Arizona was mentally unbalanced. The police had a 51 page report about this young man and he was kicked out of his college because he had some mental health issues. His parents knew he had problems but their hands were tied. How does a parent deal with that? I remember a very long time ago a young man who I knew from my grandmother’s neighborhood had some mental health issues. His parents knew it because he lived with them and they had locks on their bedroom door to keep him out, but they couldn’t do anything! One night he lost it and broke down their door and confronted them with a knife. He slit his father’s throat and his mother’s hands (defensive wounds), she somehow managed to call the police and as the police came in the door, he slit his own throat as he walked down the stairs, the police shot him dead. What we need are better ways of helping people with mental health issues, if the parents of these two mentioned young men had recourse into getting help for their sons, then these two tragedies could have been prevented.
I bet there’s a bunch more tragedies you can think of that could have been prevented if we could get people the mental health help that they need.
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