It's time. No, no, no...it's time...

I’m not necessarily anti-gun, although in my perfect world guns would not exist at all (neither would war, hate, discrimination, etc.). However, there is a statistical reality that exists, and in this statistical reality guns, while they may make individuals feel safer in an isolated anecdotal situation, “up-the-ante” so they say, and turn a bad situation into a potentially (or almost assuredly) a deadly situation.

I think the phrase I’ve heard from politicians regarding the response of the NRA to the Newton shootings has been “tone deaf”. I couldn’t say it better myself. First of all, let me say that both the president of the NRA, David Keene, and the Executive Vice President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, saying that the only thing that will NOT have an effect on gun violence is stricter gun laws is absolutely insane. These two gentlemen will not even admit that the type of gun or size of magazine have any effect whatsoever on the types of shootings (mass shootings) that have taken place over the last few decades. I guess I don’t understand this perspective. If you limit the size of magazine and limit the rapidity with which guns can fire, you obviously limit the amount of damage that can be done in a specific amount of time. That is a statistical fact. If someone uses a hunting rifle with a five round clip, the person would have to chamber the bullet after every shot, and reload the magazine after about 5 shots. This is going to take significantly longer than a gun with a thirty round clip that fires with every pull of the trigger until the clip is done. Tone deaf, indeed.

The tone-deafness doesn’t stop with whether or not guns have to do with shootings, the ridiculous (and incredibly insensitive) suggestion that we should put armed guards in every school is outrageous. Adding more guns to schools, no matter who has them, makes children unsafe. How do we know when the gun-toting security guard is going to go crazy and not only have access to the school, but have access to the school carrying a gun. This puts the children in immediate danger. The best way to protect our children in schools is to continue to make it difficult for people not affiliated with the schools out, keep children (and all others) from bringing weapons into schools, give more funding toward mental health treatment, and limit the size of magazine, rapidity of fire, and number of guns that an individual can own. More guns in school’s is such a poor idea that I can’t figure out how the NRA, typically an organization that is so strictly on message, that it scares me it has either become a scary organization or completely political.