TJ,
When I was twelve years old and in the seventh grade I carried a large caliber military rifle (British Enfield) to school one day. Did I plan to shoot the place up? No, I had been given the rifle (with ammo) as a Christmas gift by a favorite uncle and my teacher, my first male teacher, wanted to see it.
Back then when you ran up on kids in the woods, and in those days, unlike today, the woods were full of kids, they were nearly always armed. Little kids had BB guns but the older ones, from age ten or twelve on usually carried a .22 rifle, probably a single shot "boy's rifle" and chambered for the same .22LR round that Cho killed so many with. Some carried fathers shotgun. Back then boys shot rabbits, birds and squirrels, plinked at bottles and cans and played army and cowboys and Indians but NEVER went on shooting rampages at the local school or grocery store.
Something has changed.
I believe, and so do many others, that the shootings are planned and the shooters are controlled, maybe some of them very closely, by the same elements that are pushing for gun control. Don't think that is possible? Think again. The task is made easier by the vast amounts of powerful psychotropic drugs that are fed to children here, ritlan, prozac and the like. And also another programming route is the use of the extremely violent computer games and just the general toxicity of the culture.
Also, often the shootings tend to correlate with a local, usually statewide, gun control initiative; this was the case in Pennsylvania with the Amish shooting as Governor Rendell was then aggressively promoting a gun control agenda. You had a similar situation years ago in Colorado with Klebold and Harris. There has been a similar pattern in Canada and Australia. This time the agenda is probably a national one, as there is an effort ongoing to revisit the assault weapon ban and other measures.
Real gun control here is just not possible, and if it were to occur somehow or be attempted by force, that is a sign to you and others that a real power grab is being attempted by the elites. Buy gold, for sure. <grin>
Technology has made gun control impossible. Give you an example:
Marcos imposed by force a complete gun ban on the people of the Philippines in 1972, and until recently it was practically impossible for an average, law abiding, Filipino to have a gun. OTOH as you very well know, every stripe of "rebel" and members of every kidnapping syndicate and bandit gang are armed to the teeth. In principle, you could get a gun to keep in the home for self protection, but it is very expensive and involved "lessons" and the purchase of an expensive imported pistol at a very steep price that most folks cannot afford.
Now, illegal guns are everywhere, inexpensive and very usable. Not imports either, local made in Cebu, Cagayan de Oro and Davao City. Last visit I saw several, a really nice little 9mm from Ceubu and a cheaper .38 made in Cagayan. The .38 is painted dull black, not black oxide or blued or phosphated, so you need to keep it oiled, but it shoots fine.
All these illegal guns in the Philippines are made on old second hand CNC machines in tiny little shops, you know the type of place. Maybe a few years ago they built jeepneys there. Here in the US there are MILLIONS of CNC machines scattered all over the place and each one is capable of churning out piles of guns. All you need is steel bar stock. And about the simplest thing to build is an automatic, using the open bolt principle.
BTW, our founders intended guns to serve just as they do now, quietly resting in closets and cupboards until the moment of need.
Slagle
|
