When Bill Clinton was president, AR-15-style assault rifles were banned in the United States. The 10-year ban was only for weapons manufactured after the date of the ban’s enactment. Oh, and it didn’t actually ban ownership of a loud, fast gun. It banned how many bells and whistles a shooter could buy to trick out the rifle. For instance, a semi-automatic rifle could have a folding stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor (makes it hard to see where shots are coming from) or a grenade launcher.
But you could legally only add one of those, not all of them.
Sort of like buying a car and adding Bose sound, back-up camera, radar detector, rust protection and a fold-out picnic table. None of those makes the car run better, they are designed for the driver’s pleasure. And the car, no matter how many add-ons it has, does its job until some driver makes a bad decision and it gets wrecked.
Right. So, if a shooter chooses a semi-automatic rifle, and a driver chooses a high-end vehicle, but they both go out and use what they own, and they kill people, maybe we’ll be absorbed about which add-ons led to catastrophe and ban the add-ons.
King Soopers, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Route 91 Harvest Festival, Umpqua, Sandy Hook, Aurora movie theater, Waffle House in Nashville, Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Jews, Asians, Blacks, women, kids. Are we a surrogate virus that thrives on surprise, tragedy and fear?
One year ago, Bernie, Tulsi, Elizabeth, Amy, Pete, Deval, Tom, two Michaels, Joe and Andrew were scrambling to get the votes left on the table by early quitters Cory, Marianne, Julián, Beto and Kamala.
On the Republican side, it was Donald Trump against Bill Weld, with a hand-raising “Pick Me!” from Mark Sanford, but no one could find him as he was presumed to be on the Appalachian Trail but was actually in Argentina tending to personal matters. Nevertheless, lots of people wanted the job where they could be blamed for everything.
Which, again, reminds us of sticking our noses into other people’s business. “Did you vote?” has become “Have you been vaccinated?” Really? Why would anyone ask another person that? Are they afraid their shot didn’t work?
We’re all in charge of one body, the one we haul around to hold our stuff. We do what we think is best for our body, what makes it feel good. Sometimes we want fast guns and fast cars. But if we use anything, anything, from guns to vehicles to lies to deliberately hurt another human, seems the punishment should be absolute.
Anyone convicted of a hate crime should be sentenced to five or eight years of living in the society they think they hate. Live in their community, eat their cooking, work at their business, learn their culture, get to know their names and anniversaries and sports preferences.
As unsettling as our world is – asteroids, earthquakes, recalls – we do have choices and don’t ever have to choose anything to create misery.
A woman came in to join us on the office deck last week and we touched on this. She leaned back and said, “We’re Americans. We like to blow things up.”