Rand Paul started campaigning when I was a freshmen in college. This may have been the same year I made quite a few regrettable decisions myself (I'm looking at you Natty Ice and well vodka), but even through the freshmen year haze I knew this was ominous. And now, after several comments over the past couple of years that made a Democrat such as myself more than a bit embarrassed to claim voter-ship in this great state, Rand Paul gave us this "gem" yesterday. Beautiful.
The poor people of Newtown have all been victims of a horrific crime. Even those who did not lose a loved one in the shooting lost their sense of security. So now, on top of that mental warfare, they are forced to hear about why MORE guns are the solution to all of their problems. Soldiers and police officers go through hours and hours of intensive training to prepare them to react in such situations, and even they cannot respond perfectly in such a situation. Do we really want to put that pressure on the people who are trying to encourage learning, inspiration, and innovation in our country's future? Do we want our children growing up in a society that is more comfortable with guns? One that starts to see violence as inevitable? I think not.
The fact is, tragedies happen. And there's never any good reason why. No explanation that could ever justify, reverse, or just make these senseless crimes OK with us. But maybe if we're more PRO-active instead of RE-active, we can stop history from repeating itself. Adam Lanza was a sick man. I am in no way justifying the horrors he committed at Sandy Hook; my heart aches for all those parents who lost an angel this past December. But no healthy person could even conceive such an abhorrence. And instead of encouraging more guns, I want to encourage more treatment and a different attitude toward mental illness in our country. Maybe then we can find a way to prevent a future Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, or Columbine. Doesn't that sound better than asking school teachers to try shooting a future Adam Lanza, Seung-Hui Cho, or Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold?
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