I’m sitting here wondering what kind of bloody massacre will happen in this country before members of Congress do the right thing?
How many first graders will have to have their bodies ripped into shreds in their classrooms before Congress decides some weapons and magazines should not be generally available?
There are times when I’m ashamed of those who serve in Washington, and this is definitely one of those times.
Shame on Congress, but especially shame on the Democratic leadership for not putting up a fight. Shame on Senator Harry Reid, and the other weak kneed members of the Senate (Democratic and Republican); you’re cowards and don’t deserve the high honor to serve.
If you’re not going to ever fight the tough fights, step down and let someone step up who will, as Lawrence O’Donnell once said, “Some things are worth fighting for, even if you lose.”
The Liberty Tree 
lwk2431
March 22, 2013 at 15:24
You wrote:
“I’m sitting here wondering what kind of bloody massacre will happen in this country before members of Congress do the right thing?”
They have not done the “right thing” before. It was Congress that passed the Gun Free School Zone Act which makes it very difficult for responsible adults to have a firearm on school property to defend these young, innocent lives. At the same time that Act advertised to the psychos who want to go out with their name on everybody’s lips, even in infamy, that a school is a perfect place to commit an atrocity that will indeed get you plenty of notice by a slobbering press that lives by the credo that “if it bleeds, it leads.”
My wife is a teacher of very young children in a public school in Texas. Only her kids have serious issues in behavior, and she told me that if a psycho came into her school it wouldn’t do any good for her to tell those kids to hide. They couldn’t do it (because of their issues and low levels of functioning in some cases).
A couple schools in Texas, and at least one for several years now, have allowed teachers who obtain a concealed carry permit from the state of Texas to carry a concealed handgun in class. Have been no issues with that. I am hoping our legislature will soon encourage other school districts to follow suit. I would prefer my wife have some means to defend herself and her kids in the unlikely case something like Newtown happened at her school.
As to those “assault rifles” (which aren’t really, they are not machine guns) I would put a heavy, locked cabinet in the principal or secretary’s office and put a couple AR-15s there with 30 round mags, loaded). Give appropriate people the key. Train them. Maybe have the police drop by ever couple months to check the guns and perform any necessary maintenance.
Then, and unlike the principal at Newton, those people would have a fighting chance (and actually would most likely take out an Adam Lanza – he was no “Green Beret” – just crazy). But if the Lanzas of this world knew they would almost certainly meet determined and deadly resistance they would never set foot on that school, ever. He wanted to take his own life, but he didn’t want anyone else to take it. Most of them are like that. They usually commit suicide when resistance is met, or meant to but couldn’t pull the trigger on themself.
I own at least two rifles that you would probably (incorrectly) label “Assault Rifles” and at least one handgun that holds 15 rounds in a clip. An AR-15 is probably the best possible weapon for home defense (and one of the safest with frangible rounds – it shoots one of the least powerful centerfire rifle cartridges in existence, but is more powerful than most handguns)
I target shoot with one (and my son who shot expert at Marine boot camp used to target shoot with it). The other is an AR-15 carbine. It is one of the few weapons I own that my wife could use for self defense at home. Her hands have too much arthritis to pull back the slide on my Glock 19. The only way she can shoot that is if I load it for her before hand.
So just a note. A lot of people who own these guns, and shoot them have wives and kids too. And we are concerned with protecting them. The great tragedy is not that these guns exist and people own them. The greatest tragedy is those people who won’t let adults protect children in schools.
Just my view.
Btw, if you go to the very first post on my blog (back in Dec) I wrote “Who Needs An Assault Rifle” and it covers in great detail what an AR-15 is good in the home.
regards,
lwk
free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com