Saturday, January 12, 2013

"Kids were shot, so I'm buying a gun." Huh?


Did you rush out to buy a gun after the first-graders were killed in Newtown?

The National Rifle Association has signed up more than 100,000 new members since the kids and teachers were shot and killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14.

Mike Allen on Politico.com reported that the NRA's goal is to top 5,000,000 members "before this (gun control) debate is over."

The New York Times says   that gun sales have exploded since the Newtown massacre, here's an excerpt:

“If I had 1,000 AR-15s I could sell them in a week,” said Jack Smith, an independent gun dealer in Des Moines, referring to the popular style of semiautomatic rifle that drew national attention after Adam Lanza used one to kill 20 children and 6 adults at a Newtown school. “When I close, they beat on the glass to be let in,” Mr. Smith said of his customers. “They’ll wave money at me.”
"Mr. Smith said many people were stocking up on high-capacity magazines in anticipation that they might be banned. Two weeks ago, he said, a 30-round rifle magazine was $12, but it now fetches $60. Popular online retailers were out of many 20- and 30-round rifle magazines."

I do not understand the reactions of these Americans who rush to buy guns after the murders of 20 first-graders in Newtown, CT.

I don't respect what they're doing, but I respect the fact that what they're doing is legal. For now, at least.

My reaction was different.

My reaction included tears, and horror, and desperate fear that it's too easy for the next crazed killer to get big guns and do it again.

It's time to outlaw sales of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and it's time to make high-capacity magazines illegal.

We have too many guns in America.

Too many dead people.


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