At Last?

Do we have to  have 20 martyred children to even talk seriously about this country's gun problem?  Seems like it, doesn't it?  We've seen so many movies and television shows with scenes like this picture, the gun pointing right at us, that we have lost the sense of reality, the sense of danger, the sense of fear. We think it won't happen to us -- or to anyone we know, certainly not our children or  grandchildren. How would you feel if that was the last thing a child you love saw?

The assault rifle ban will probably be renewed. But will anything else happen? Will Vice President Biden's committee file another easily forgotten report? Will the NRA and Second Amendment-er continue to do as they please?

This is a country has strict laws about car seats for children, about flame retardants on children's pajamas, and the safety of toys.  But every year many children are killed with guns, sometimes a child kill one another with guns, too often children kill their parents with guns.  It's time to find a sense of balance.  I loath hunting but I would not argue that people should not be allowed to hunt or to have hunting rifles if that is a sport they want to pursue.  And I recognize that in our dire economy the country has many people who eat meat only because they can shoot a deer or two -- yes, city dwellers, many people live in the rural parts of this country where deer are both plentiful but sometimes pestilential.

Let's stop getting salving our consciences by passing laws about how to make car seats for babies and think about laws to get military, mass-killing mechanisms out of homes, off the streets, away from our children and away from those who are emotionally unbalanced.