Can't sleep...

To say that the events of today have shaken me is an understatement. Not necessarily the horrible fact that a literal madman went on a killing spree against his own family and a school, but also the immediate clamor for more laws to stop the problem. Today, I have heard the gamut, from the immediate banning of all guns, to the immediate rounding up and murder of anyone with mental illness. Both extremes are reprehensible.

As you know, the Crazed American is a strong proponent for the Second Amendment (and the rest of the Constitution, for that matter). I am a gun owner, and a concealed carry permit holder. I keep my guns secure and safe, and all who live with me are aware and knowledgeable of where the firearms are kept, and safety rules for their storage and use.

I believe that G-d (or whatever deity or creator figure you acknowledge) granted all human beings the right to be free.

Go ahead and ban guns. There are three hundred million of them here in the US. You know what that does to stop madmen, and people who decide to break the law? Flat fucking nothing. All it does is steal a right from those who are responsible and law abiding, and only wish to decisively defend themselves or engage in a hobby or sport.

How many laws did the shooter break before he entered the school?

If he was indeed mentally incompetent, he broke the law by touching the tools used to commit his perverse acts. He killed his own mother, by shooting her in the face.

He illegally gained possession of handguns (under 21 - illegal)

He broke a law by going into that school, armed.

He perpetrated the most reprehensible of all acts, the cold blooded murder of terrified children.  As a man, as a father, as an American, as a human fucking being, I am sickened unto death of what that demon did.

Now tell me, a person, he'll bent on savagery and mayhem, is going to be dissuaded, how exactly?

In 1927 a man enacted the biggest school murder in history. He killed 45 people with bombs. Keep in mind this was long before the Federal Firearms Act of 1934. That means that monster could have bought Thompson sub machine guns through the mail. No InstaCheck, NCIS, no 4473, no background check. People bent on murder will murder. It may take them a moment longer to do it, but they will do it.

It boils down to freedom. Each and everyone of us has it. Most people claim to cherish freedom. We have to all understand that freedom isn't always pretty, it isn't always clean. Sometimes freedom can be disgusting, painful, bloody and awful - and that is just something's that can be considered art.

Guns are tools. They lack anima. A gun cannot commit murder any more than a car, or a hammer, the jawbone of a buffalo, or a rock can.

I leave you with this: in the 1930's a government banned firearms. Then it banned the mentally ill, and by banning I mean industrialized murder. It got worse from there...