If Now is not the Time - When Is?
I don’t usually write about non-technical stuff on this blog, but today is not a normal day. Today, tragedy struck a small community in Connecticut as 20 children aged 5-10 yrs. old and at least 6 adults were tragically killed by what appears, at the time of writing, to be a lone gunman armed with an assault rifle- not a shut-gun that could be used for hunting or even a pistol but an assault rifle - and at least 2 other guns.
Of course Twitter and Facebook has been abuzz over the last few hrs. about the tragedy, and as usual it has again become a debate about US gun laws (primarily the lack thereof). And I have to admit I am getting fed up with the nonsensical “Guns don’t kill, people do” response, or maybe it’s the “Even if we made guns illegal, people intent on killing would use knives or find a way to get an illegal gun”. These arguments are so easy to debunk I honestly can’t see how the gun lobby can keep making them with a straight face.
Someone I follow on Twitter even said - If we had armed the teachers at least the number of children killed would be less. What are we going to do next - send our kids to school with AK-47s. Suffice to say - I am no longer following that individual.
But the comment that really gets me riled is “Now is not the time to discus Gun Control - now is the time to mourn the victims”. I don’t agree - that is just a way for the pro-gun lobby to deflect the debate away from Gun Control. Don’t get me wrong, we do need to mourn the victims, but we also need to honor them, by doing something. The time to discus this is now, when its fresh in our minds, because you know there will always be other “more important” issues to discus once the immediacy of this act of terror has passed.
So, President Obama, please don’t let more innocent victims die because we failed to act.
"If Now is Not the Time, please tell me when it is the right Time”.