Monday, June 13, 2016

No Joke Anymore

OK, now we've seen the kind of violence that hateful rhetoric can inspire.

When a presidential candidate promotes a national paranoia about people from a particular religion, it may indeed push some nut-case hater to act out (like the unspeakable horror done in Orlando).

The shooter was no Muslim; instead, he was flat-out crazy.  (Ask anyone who knows about Islam; it's not a religion about violence, any more than Christianity is supposed to be.)

The FBI dropped the ball, after interviewing the shooter two or three times because of his predilection to radicalization, and he was permitted to buy weapons just days before the shooting anyway.

Maybe more guns is not the answer; maybe it is the problem.

Why didn't background checks catch the shooter?  Because they were too weak; it's time to strengthen background checks!

The answer is certainly not to turn our backs on the values upon which the United States of America were built -- religious freedom and tolerance -- but to *embrace* those values again and act to stamp out hate!

Treat guns like automobiles -- require insurance and record-keeping and health checks for users, don't just hand them out willy-nilly and hope that things will be OK.

No comments: