Cynicism has killed the gun-control debate, we're a nation of one-man militias

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Americans have been killing each other for a long time - thousands upon thousands of men, women and children lying in the cold, cold ground from decades of homicidal violence, the bulk of it inflicted with guns. There are street killings here, bedroom killings there - single victims scattered across the daily news. (I saw my first victim 33 years ago this month, a woman shot to death by her estranged husband as she walked across a parking lot.) And then there are the mass killings, a squall of them this spring, with 57 dead within the last month or so, in a handful of incidents from California to New York.

I hear hardly anyone, anywhere expressing much more than a shrug about it.

...

After the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and again after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981, many of us believed the country would turn against guns - assault-style weapons and handguns in particular. But all these years later, we now recognize 280 million as the estimated number of firearms among the 300-plus million inhabitants of the United States. What is there to say? That is a mountain of guns, and it's growing.

...

Americans are convinced that politicians aren't going to do anything about gun violence. Sixty-five members of his own party in the House of Representatives have urged the president not to resurrect the assault weapons ban that expired under George W. Bush.

Most of us are also convinced that there are too many angry, ill and violent people in our midst, and that they have easy access to guns. Absent leadership that would promulgate greater control of guns, we fear mass killings will continue. So, the thinking goes, maybe it's best to be prepared - have a gun handy, just in case the madman comes to your office or your kid's school.

...

We have in our midst millions of one-man militias - trusting no one, cynical about life in a changing society, convinced of the likelihood of more dysfunction and gun violence, and convinced, above all, that few in elected office have the guts to do anything about it.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...,4236017.column

[Nagishkaw 510]

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

You win some, you lose some. On to gay marriage and amnesty!

[Peikko 1,575]

Never met one in the cold light of day, but I have surely read a few rants by such folks on VJ

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Never met one in the cold light of day, but I have surely read a few rants by such folks on VJ

Never met one what?

[Peikko 1,575]

One of them one man militia cynical bastards.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Don't call them bastards, they are patriots.

[Peikko 1,575]

Doesn't stop them being bastards.

One can be a patriotic ####### or a ####### patriot - although they do mean slightly different things

[Nagishkaw 510]

They don't have fathers?

[Peikko 1,575]

Let's not get all literal now...

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Madame Cleo, you should apologize. That was very rude.. and frankly, unbecoming a woman of your intellect.

[Peikko 1,575]

Rude, to call cynics old bastards? I thought that was a standard and highly appropriate cliche. I stand corrected - or not

[justashooter 430]

One of them one man militia cynical bastards.

that comment is prolly against TOS.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

One of them one man militia cynical bastards.

that comment is prolly against TOS.

Funny how a suspension can sensitize one to TOS

[Ban Hammer 13,356]

One of them one man militia cynical bastards.

that comment is prolly against TOS.

Funny how a suspension can sensitize one to TOS

funny you'd know that