This is an article from one of our local rags this week. It really pissed me off and my reply is below the dotted lie. Its harsh. Id appreciate some opinions before I send it.The article begins with "Fair warnings"...
Fair warning: If you count yourself among Virginia’s (quite sizable) contingent of second amendment absolutists, you should stop reading now. As we sit here, furiously writing yet another post-gun massacre column, we’re in no mood to tiptoe around the delicate sensibilities of this country’s increasingly unhinged firearm fanatics.
In the wake of the horrible slaughter of 20 terrified, defenseless children and seven adults in Newtown, Connecticut, we’re done pretending that America’s proponents of unfettered access to military hardware for all citizens are anything but accessories to mass murder. This fetishization of large caliber, high-capacity weaponry is, in our humble opinion, an ongoing aberration in the American psyche, and one that basically guarantees that thousands of innocent souls will continue to be lost to madmen with easy access to the tools of death.
We realize that this is not a popular opinion. Even after suffering through the largest mass shooting since April 16, 2007—when a pathetic, self-hating slug named Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech—the asinine NRA fantasy that arming everyone in sight would magically solve the problem remains disturbingly prevalent. (In fact, according to the Virginia State Police, the number of criminal background checks requested by prospective gun owners shot to an all-time high the day after the Newtown massacre.)
Even our lustrously helmet-haired Governor Bob McDonnell got in on the action, musing during his monthly appearance on radio station WTOP that, if a Sandy Hook school official had been “trained and chose to have a weapon,” then there would have been “an opportunity to stop aggressors coming into the schools.”
This is Rush Limbaugh-level idiocy, and demonstrates a startling lack of empathy and common sense on the part of the Governor. (Which is exactly why the NRA later proposed its own moronic armed-guards-in-schools solution.) As the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has astutely pointed out, James Brady was standing a foot away from the most powerful man in the world, surrounded by the most highly trained protective force ever created, and he still got shot in the head. In what possible world is an elementary school principle with a .38 Special going to stop a truly determined killer with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammo?
What makes McDonnell’s sorry performance so much more galling (to us, anyway) is the fact that Virginia is a huge part of the gun violence problem. As a centrally located East Coast state with intentionally porous gun laws that allow the unrestricted sale of firearms at gun shows without a background check, we put more deadly weapons into the hands of shady characters than almost any other state in the union.
In a sane world, the stomach-churning mental image of a lunatic repeatedly firing .223 caliber bullets into the helpless, writhing bodies of children would make us finally stop, realize the folly of our current gun laws, and take immediate corrective action.
But we do not live in a sane world. And, as much as it pains us to say it, nothing will really change. Twenty tiny coffins will be lowered into the ground, politicians will fulminate and fight, a scrap of watered-down, ineffective legislation may or may not pass, and we’ll all sit around, waiting for the next trigger-happy loner to destroy yet another community, as we continue to weep for the sick weakness of our collective will.
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Mr. Catalano,
I doubt that the C-ville will have the cajones to publish my reply to your article Suffer the children but it will be sent never-the-less, and copies sent to other publications. Frankly, I think your little more than a big mouthed buffoon, the kind, who, not having the guts to protect, himself will pay other real men to do the job. The type who rather than face the facts, twists and misuses words to protect his ignorance and fear, and to obstruct the liberties of others with more courage than himself. A gun never shot anyone, any more than a computer has ever mis-spelled words, or a bottle of liquor ever caused a car fatality. Do you think that because alcohol directly contributes to more deaths each year than guns that we should ban alcohol? When is the last time you had a glass of wine with supper...did that make you an alcoholic, or cause you to wreck and kill someone. Probably not. Lets face it, prohibition didn't work with alcohol anymore than it has with drugs, and no more than it will by taking away the rights of peaceable citizens to enjoy recreational shooting. Face it, Catalano, sick people kill people. Put your time and money into healing the sick minds and leave me and my liberties alone. If you and your gutless ilk take away firearms the sick will just find other ways to harm the innocent, and the innocent wont have the means to defend themselves.
Any determined individual could enter a school with a knife and inflict almost as much damage...do you want to ban knives? Please! I think Governor McDonnell, while dropping the ball this summer with the problem at my alma mater, UVA, is spot on in his assessment that, "had a Sandy Hook teacher been trained and chose to have a weapon the carnage would have stopped much sooner." He's right, dummy. If you take the means of protecting oneself away, then you give the criminals free reign.
Let me offer you a scenario..... Your laying in bed one night with your wife and children and grandchildren all safely tucked in. You hear a window break and thugs entering your home. Are you really willing to cower in your bedroom while they slaughter your family with kitchen knives, or are you man enough to stand up and take the fight to them. I realize that the thought of "defending yourself" is foreign to most of you liberals...so I guess you would just wait the 8-10 minutes for the cops to show up and bag your family. You disgust me. Ill fight to protect my self and my loved ones... with guns if necessary, or with a knife, a hammer, or my bare hands if necessary.
One final thought for you., and please don't think I'm a right wing conservative...I'm not, I'm a realist. You, and your gutless liberal press, nationwide, keep talking about the AR-15 that was used in Newton. If you would just stop and read, you'd find out that the AR was found in the kids trunk, he did all the shooting with a couple of pistols. Get off your pulpit, its ugly, stupid, and worst of all, wrong. Get your facts straight, you haven't got a clue. Here's a link that might give you one. http://youtu.be/OXrZPHnaJao
Fair warning: If you count yourself among Virginia’s (quite sizable) contingent of second amendment absolutists, you should stop reading now. As we sit here, furiously writing yet another post-gun massacre column, we’re in no mood to tiptoe around the delicate sensibilities of this country’s increasingly unhinged firearm fanatics.
In the wake of the horrible slaughter of 20 terrified, defenseless children and seven adults in Newtown, Connecticut, we’re done pretending that America’s proponents of unfettered access to military hardware for all citizens are anything but accessories to mass murder. This fetishization of large caliber, high-capacity weaponry is, in our humble opinion, an ongoing aberration in the American psyche, and one that basically guarantees that thousands of innocent souls will continue to be lost to madmen with easy access to the tools of death.
We realize that this is not a popular opinion. Even after suffering through the largest mass shooting since April 16, 2007—when a pathetic, self-hating slug named Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech—the asinine NRA fantasy that arming everyone in sight would magically solve the problem remains disturbingly prevalent. (In fact, according to the Virginia State Police, the number of criminal background checks requested by prospective gun owners shot to an all-time high the day after the Newtown massacre.)
Even our lustrously helmet-haired Governor Bob McDonnell got in on the action, musing during his monthly appearance on radio station WTOP that, if a Sandy Hook school official had been “trained and chose to have a weapon,” then there would have been “an opportunity to stop aggressors coming into the schools.”
This is Rush Limbaugh-level idiocy, and demonstrates a startling lack of empathy and common sense on the part of the Governor. (Which is exactly why the NRA later proposed its own moronic armed-guards-in-schools solution.) As the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has astutely pointed out, James Brady was standing a foot away from the most powerful man in the world, surrounded by the most highly trained protective force ever created, and he still got shot in the head. In what possible world is an elementary school principle with a .38 Special going to stop a truly determined killer with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammo?
What makes McDonnell’s sorry performance so much more galling (to us, anyway) is the fact that Virginia is a huge part of the gun violence problem. As a centrally located East Coast state with intentionally porous gun laws that allow the unrestricted sale of firearms at gun shows without a background check, we put more deadly weapons into the hands of shady characters than almost any other state in the union.
In a sane world, the stomach-churning mental image of a lunatic repeatedly firing .223 caliber bullets into the helpless, writhing bodies of children would make us finally stop, realize the folly of our current gun laws, and take immediate corrective action.
But we do not live in a sane world. And, as much as it pains us to say it, nothing will really change. Twenty tiny coffins will be lowered into the ground, politicians will fulminate and fight, a scrap of watered-down, ineffective legislation may or may not pass, and we’ll all sit around, waiting for the next trigger-happy loner to destroy yet another community, as we continue to weep for the sick weakness of our collective will.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Catalano,
I doubt that the C-ville will have the cajones to publish my reply to your article Suffer the children but it will be sent never-the-less, and copies sent to other publications. Frankly, I think your little more than a big mouthed buffoon, the kind, who, not having the guts to protect, himself will pay other real men to do the job. The type who rather than face the facts, twists and misuses words to protect his ignorance and fear, and to obstruct the liberties of others with more courage than himself. A gun never shot anyone, any more than a computer has ever mis-spelled words, or a bottle of liquor ever caused a car fatality. Do you think that because alcohol directly contributes to more deaths each year than guns that we should ban alcohol? When is the last time you had a glass of wine with supper...did that make you an alcoholic, or cause you to wreck and kill someone. Probably not. Lets face it, prohibition didn't work with alcohol anymore than it has with drugs, and no more than it will by taking away the rights of peaceable citizens to enjoy recreational shooting. Face it, Catalano, sick people kill people. Put your time and money into healing the sick minds and leave me and my liberties alone. If you and your gutless ilk take away firearms the sick will just find other ways to harm the innocent, and the innocent wont have the means to defend themselves.
Any determined individual could enter a school with a knife and inflict almost as much damage...do you want to ban knives? Please! I think Governor McDonnell, while dropping the ball this summer with the problem at my alma mater, UVA, is spot on in his assessment that, "had a Sandy Hook teacher been trained and chose to have a weapon the carnage would have stopped much sooner." He's right, dummy. If you take the means of protecting oneself away, then you give the criminals free reign.
Let me offer you a scenario..... Your laying in bed one night with your wife and children and grandchildren all safely tucked in. You hear a window break and thugs entering your home. Are you really willing to cower in your bedroom while they slaughter your family with kitchen knives, or are you man enough to stand up and take the fight to them. I realize that the thought of "defending yourself" is foreign to most of you liberals...so I guess you would just wait the 8-10 minutes for the cops to show up and bag your family. You disgust me. Ill fight to protect my self and my loved ones... with guns if necessary, or with a knife, a hammer, or my bare hands if necessary.
One final thought for you., and please don't think I'm a right wing conservative...I'm not, I'm a realist. You, and your gutless liberal press, nationwide, keep talking about the AR-15 that was used in Newton. If you would just stop and read, you'd find out that the AR was found in the kids trunk, he did all the shooting with a couple of pistols. Get off your pulpit, its ugly, stupid, and worst of all, wrong. Get your facts straight, you haven't got a clue. Here's a link that might give you one. http://youtu.be/OXrZPHnaJao
