To the editior:
How about FREE guns for all newly released felons!
I’m joking of course. But is it really a joke? This gun mantra of a gun in every hand all began for earnest about 10-15 years ago when most guns in the U.S. were in the hands of law abiding citizens, safely tucked away in gun lockers and cabinets. There was not much traction at first. It was all a crazy idea anyway.
Then a gift from heaven itself! A black man was elected President of the United States, President Obama. The floodgates were opened. The GOP Republicans and NRA pounced and went full bore and used fear of the black man to sell guns! The onslaught has been non-stop!
Fear of the black man coming for citizen guns was played 24/7 non-stop on most Main Stream Media. Republicans had it as their number-one campaign slogan: you simply could not get elected if you did not use guns as an issue. Fear of drug dealers, terrorists, immigrants, Muslims, etc, came along with the gun slogans.
And boy did fear sell! Since President Obama was elected seven years ago, it would not be farfetched to state that over a 100 million guns have been sold in America. Twenty-three million guns alone in 2014! Guns now permeate every facet of American life. You simply cannot be anywhere without at least 50 percent of the people around you carrying guns. It has become a fetish, and a very dangerous one.
Are there any signs of it slowing up? Not anytime soon! A Feb. 4 article by Scott Thistle in the Bangor Daily News, writes about Sen. Andre Cushing, R-Hampden, sponsoring a bill that would lift Gun Bans in Public Housing. This would allow all residents who use public housing be allowed to have guns. Sick, old, invalid, wheelchair bound, on meds, poor, etc., all could have guns.
Interestingly, in the same issue, on page B4, Angelo J. Verzino, has an article on a landlord who killed two teenagers and wounded one of the victim’s mothers in 2012 over a parking spot dispute! This is the landlord! And now the Republicans and NRA want to put guns into everyone’s hands! Shades of Armageddon!
This is why I propose that the Republicans and the NRA sponsor a bill to give every newly released felon a gun upon their release. This way, felons could protect themselves from other gun-carrying felons. Crazy you say? This is no crazier than no requirement for criminal or background checks Republicans are proposing! While at it, why not high school 9-12 students be allowed to carry guns while in school? Or how about mentally discharged patients? Delinquents? It’s coming!
So fellow citizens, 10-15 years ago, most Americans were relatively safe from guns. Now that is no longer the case. Now we have something real to fear: the all-pervasive abundance, use and the carrying of guns by lord knows who! Death by guns is increasing yearly with no abatements anytime soon!
We have let fear obscure and cloud our reason! What is missing in all this is the utter lack of discussion of the consequences that will result from this maniacal purchase of all these guns. The buying of all these guns remind me of the 1,001 things we compulsively buy on the spur of the moment, only to discard in short order. Only, these guns will be with us for hundreds of years! They just can’t simply be thrown away in a landfill. Some are not yet born who will have some of these present guns in their hands years from now. They will be stolen, misplaced, found, sold, misused, and lost.
Some of these guns will murder humans long after the original owners bought them. A sane 50-year-old today, may go insane at 70 and go on a shooting spree! A loving couple today may not be so loving 20 years from now and quick to use them. A proud American today may turn a terrorist 20 years from now. An outstanding citizen today may in 20 years go bankrupt and start selling drugs or use them heavily and still have all these guns he/she purchased long ago.
And all the concealed-carry in your local bars: in the old days, drunken arguments ended in fist fights: but now if everyone carries, what do you think will be the end result? The list of possibilities is endless! These guns are like killer bacteria and viruses, always with us, always ready to kill us.
We, the People, have willingly out of baseless fear, unleashed a demon who will eventually be our undoing!
