July 23, 2012

The Debate Over Firearms, or Let No Tragedy Go Unpoliticized

Maybe it was out of respect for the victims of the shooting spree, but the knee-jerk reactions and posturing from both sides of the gun "control" debate seemed to be a little later in coming that usual.  But by Saturday afternoon you had all manner of positions being taken and the media soup they spawned populating your RSS and Twitter:

From the reasonable,

To the silly, misguided cop-outs,

To the truly monstrous

Try to filter out all the nonsense.  We should remember to not let tragedy define us.
Cornel West has put it best in his tweet:
"The only countermovement against catastrophe and trauma is never forgetting the catastrophic and yet still attempting to triumph."


Switzerland: reasonable
Still, one hopes that we might create a culture that is a more enlightened about guns.  We may never be like Germany (no guns, very little violence) or Switzerland (guns everywhere, still no violence), but perhaps we could learn a lesson or two from events and move beyond the screaming match between the NRA and the far left.  It's long past time to have a serious conversation about what is a reasonable firearm policy.  If not we are sure to continue to let unreasonable people hijack the debate forcing the conversation to devolve further into the false choice between the Yosemite Sam vision of the wild west or perceived tyranny.


Time to grow up.

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