J’Accuse

I accuse George W. Bush of being an accomplice to murder.
I accuse the members of Congress who have failed to restrict gun ownership of being accomplices to murder.
I accuse the National Rifle Association of being accomplice to murder.
I accuse every citizen of this country who fails to support gun control of being an accomplice to murder.
The last item includes me. I send money to the Brady Campaign on occasion but most of the time I let it take a very low priority on my list of concerns.

I cannot believe the hypocrisy of a President who shows up to offer prayer for those who have died when he has opposed every measure that might have saved them.

I happened to be on the road a good deal the last two days and I listened to a lot of talk radio. I listened for awhile to Bill O’Reilly of The O’Reilly Factor, one of the most articulate conservative talk show people out there. Bill O’Reilly believes we could do more to control who has guns! A stanch “defender of the Second Amendment,” he was saying Virginia’s gun regulations are too lax. No foreign national, he said, should have a gun. No felon should have a gun. There should be a two or three day waiting period before a gun purchase can be completed. The government, he said, should be able to limit the fire power of citizens. NRA members called in to protest. Why, they asked, should the government know what guns they have? O’Reilly was having none of it. The government needs to know what house you own and it needs to know who owns what guns. When the NRA types pushed too hard, he told them to take a deep breath; the NRA, he said, has gotten to be more about politics than guns.

When it gets to the point that even Bill O’Reilly thinks gun ownership is out of control, you know it is. But people in Virginia ought to know it especially. Snipers shooting out of an altered car. Seriously deranged people shooting down students by the dozen.

O’Reilly thinks we do need guns, however, to defend ourselves. If there weren’t so many guns out there, why would we need to defend ourselves? In Japan and England and other civilized countries, few people have guns and far fewer die.

One caller told a talk show host that she puts her gun on the kitchen table and points out to her children that it can’t hurt anyone until a human hand picks it up. “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” But people kill a lot fewer people when they have to use kitchen knives or their bare hands.

We control the use of automobiles and no one questions it. We control the use of all kinds of dangerous objects. Why not guns? Are we also crazy?

Those who enable murder are murderers.

What have you done to prevent the next tragedy?

1 Comment

CarolineApril 20th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

Not enough, but you’ve moved me to action now.

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