It would be wonderful if we could put the gun-genie back in the bottle in the US. But that’s not going to happen for a bunch of reasons, some legit, some nut-so. Someone with this guy’s apparent resources would have weaponry like this even if there was a total ban on firearms in the US, I’m afraid. And then there’s Boston where no firearms were used.
This is the evil that people do in its most vile form. And that is a truly intractable problem. There will always be technology available of one sort or another. Think more powerful (lifting capability) drones and bombs... that will undoubtedly become an issue at some point. With his resources this would not have been much of a problem to utilize such a weapon - fly it into the middle of that crowd. If he was bent on doing evil, and firearms were absolutely not available to him, I doubt seriously he’d have just stayed home and played golf instead.
To have this discussion focus on the sad and stupid gun situation in the US is to not reallly see the root problem. (Don’t get me wrong, if I could make guns go away tomorrow, I’d do it in a heartbeat.)
One of the firefighters I hired 20+ years ago was at the concert and was shot through the leg. Fortunately it looks like he’ll be OK. This is not an academic discussion for me.
I think a change in tone as things are reported would help, at least a little bit. We need to call evil, evil. Talking about it in abstract terms like “tragedy” is inaccurate at a fundamental level. Tragedy is what happens when your dog gets run over by a car, accidentally. This was a deliberate, heinous, act of pure premeditated evil, perpetrated by someone who valued his own “agenda” (for whatever warped reason) above anyone or anything else in the world. It is narcissism taken to the ultimate level. His name should be reviled.
Rand
