An Unremarkable Sale

As we mourn the loss of 32 people at VTech, I'm thinking about the two instances this year that have brought gun control to the front of my mind. One is, of course, the story of this guy who bought a gun and ammunition in an "unremarkable sale" (according to the owner of the gun store) for 571 bucks and five weeks later killed 31 people and himself. The other is a gun crime that happened in KC to someone I know. That's never happened to me before.

My friends, it's too easy to get a gun. Background checks, criminal records checks, psychological evaluations...nobody actually does them. One of the things Borat showed us about our country is the readiness of gun enthusiasts to talk about killing, ANYTHING, even Jews!! It's too easy. OK, you want to talk to me about the bill of rights, fine. The bill of rights came out of a particular time and place, a time and place with very peculiar circumstances. It was a revolutionary time, it was a scary time, it was war time. AND, people still hunted for food. Hunted for survival. So, the 230 year old "right to bear arms" doesn't make a lot of sense in a time in which people are getting killed in SCHOOLS, children are getting killed in schools, wives/daughters/mothers are being killed in their homes, brothers/fathers/husbands/sons are killing each other on the street over territorial feuds or the color of their clothes. OK, you want to talk to me about the whole "if we strengthen gun control only the criminals will have guns", fine. I'M FINE WITH THAT!! That's what makes them criminals. I want to think that the rest of us are different than criminals, are better than criminals, should live to a higher standard than criminals. Cops and robbers, people. That's they way it's supposed to be. When you're a kid, you don't play robbers and citizens protecting their property. (part of the problem is America's sense of ownership and the right to property, entitlement, but that's another blog for another time) NO, you play cops and robbers. Let the men and women who give their lives to protect us protect us.

it's too easy. It's too easy for a preacher's wife who's fed up with the pressures of being a preacher's wife and the too high expectations of her husband to get a gun and shot him more than once while he was IN BED! (self-defense, my ass) It's too easy for an 18 yr old kid from 12th st. KC to get a gun and blast some other poor kid because he "disrepected" him. It's too easy for a FREAKING 13 YR OLD to shoot up his school with his step-dad's hunting rifle. It's too easy for a disturbed, troubled, desperate young man, to walk into a store, slap down a NON-CITIZEN ID, and, for less than a bicycle, less than a good camera, less than a new set of tires, less than my Missouri taxes, purchase something that was only designed for, who's sole purpose is killing human beings.

I could go right now, drive out to our favorite neighborhood health-benefit-denying superstore, buy some underpants, the new Kings of Leon cd, stop by the McDonalds to get a double cheese burger, maybe a washing machine...AND AN INSTRUMENT OF DEATH AND TORTURE THAT WAS ONLY EVER MEANT TO KILL ANOTHER HUMAN! If that makes sense to you, I'm sorry. And, feel free to explain your position to me, but I will never understand it.

Rest in peace, my friends. May God give us the strength to learn from your sacrifice. B