I've been watching the news coverage of this repulsive act of violence in Arizona and I can't help but think about all the things that haven't changed since the last time something like this happened. And all the things that didn't change the time before. How is that we as a nation can watch these atrocious and possibly preventable tragedies unfold time after time and take absolutely no steps to prevent them from happening again?
This asswipe in Tuscon is just the latest in a string of asswipes who will be allowed to have free and easy access to firearms and will choose to use that freedom to kill innocent people for no other reason than their own mental instability.
I know it's shocking, but the answer is not MORE guns. That line of thinking is akin to, "Holy crap, the kitchen is on fire!! Quick, get the matches before it spreads!!" The only people who believe that a more heavily armed populace is the solution to the problem of gun violence in this country are the people profiting from the sale of guns; and let's be honest, do we really care what they, or their political wing (The NRA), have to say on the matter?
And while it's not a solution to the problem, there is a civic need for this guy and others like him to be disposed of quickly and publicly. Lethal injection is a joke. Why waste our collective time and tax dollars on a person so devoid of any value? Walk him to the nearest dumpster, shoot him once for every one of his victims and leave him there until the next regularly scheduled trash collection.
Even as I say this, I know that it's nothing more than an unsatisfying and disturbing fantasy. Americans as a group would not allow that kind of blatant disregard for even the most despised of human lives. The acts of heroism and selflessness of last Saturday demonstrate clearly that people are mostly good. After wrestling this armed psycho to the ground, the good men responsible for subduing him could have very well used his own gun to finish him off. After all, they would have any number of justifications: self defense, fear, retaliation, etc. But they didn't. Even in a situation that must have been very emotionally charged, while the murder is subdued and yet continued to try to reload his weapon, these men did what was right, and waited for the authorities to arrive.
That is much more heroic than any vigilante justice or grotesque public retribution.
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