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No easy answers to gun-control questions
Randy Blaser
Updated: January 24, 2013 3:38PM
One can’t go into a sporting goods store or log on to the Internet without noticing the gun debate that is raging.
While shopping at my favorite suburban Bass Pro Shop, I couldn’t help but notice the long line queued up at the gun counter. A co-worker went out and bought an AR-15 as an investment. He reasoned that once they are outlawed, which is on the horizon, his gun’s value will skyrocket.
Another friend, a lifelong hunter, only takes to Facebook to post links to anti-NRA rants. Another friend only posts images of pledges to the 2nd Amendment.
Meanwhile, the president does what he can by executive order, limited that it is, because Congress won’t lift a finger to pass any gun legislation, let alone reasonable gun legislation.
I don’t own a gun or hunt, but when my elderly father said he planned to sell his hunting arsenal — two .22 rifles, a deer rifle and two shotguns — I offered to buy them. That was before Sandy Hook.
Now I’m not so sure. But I understand completely why so many Americans are lining up for guns. It is human nature. Threaten to take something away, and even people who never thought of owning a gun will line up to get one.
Through all the noise, I am convinced that whatever action is finally taken will do nothing to solve the issue of gun violence in our country, or prevent another Sandy Hook. Nothing convinced me more of that fact than the picture of President Obama signing his gun executive order surrounded by children.
Why? Because of these simple facts:
Every week, innocent children are gunned down on the streets of Chicago. I don’t see what is being done to stop that. The national focus is on assault rifles. But handguns are killing Chicago’s children who live in poverty and fear.
The school shootings that anti-gun advocates hope to stop happen out in the suburbs. The average age of these school shooters is 16 — just children themselves. One of the youngest was just 11 years old — Andrew Golden, who with his partner, 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson, killed five and wounded 10 at Westside Middle School in Arkansas in 1998.
Obviously, the real question is about these children, especially troubled boys. What in the world is going on with them? What is driving them, or troubling them? Are they being treated in any way? Are they taking medication? What are the side effects to these medications? We see the warnings of terrible side effects on the drug ads on TV.
These are such an obvious questions, yet no one seems to be asking.
The poet Robert Bly says that a boy who feels unparented becomes violent.
The questions and even the answers are staring us in the face.
