Sunday, April 05, 2009

Enough Already

Okay, I get it. People are suffering; mental illness abounds; guns are too easily available to men who are deranged.

Now can we stop having another story a day in the news about some crazy male who shoots a bunch of strangers and/or his family before turning the gun on himself? Or is there some way to ensure that all these murder/suicides take the advice of Stranger columnist David Schmader and make sure the guy does the suicide first?

Friday, fourteen people are shot to death by an angry, crazy man in Binghampton, New York. Saturday morning, three cops are killed by an angry, crazy man in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the quiet neighborhood of Stanton Heights, where I used to ride my bike to feel up my first girlfriend while we made out on her parents’ couch when they were away. Last night, an angry, crazy man in Graham, Washington, just a few miles down the road from where I live now shot and killed his five kids, aged 6 to 15, before putting a bullet in his own head.

Fuck. Enough already.

I have no idea how to prevent such tragedies, but here’s an idea: don’t let men have guns. How about that one?

Oddly enough, you hardly ever (have you ever?) hear about some angry, crazy woman flipping out and going postal with a cache of automatic weapons; it’s always some dude. Apparently, girls are just more responsible with guns than boys, so maybe we should stop letting anyone with the Y chromosome be allowed to play with them.

No doubt lots of fellows will be opposed to this, especially those who want their own arsenal in order to protect themselves from the government or whomever, but they can rest assured that they’ll be safe just so long as they’ve got a female friend or companion whose stockpiled her own munitions.

I’m not saying this will solve everything, but it’s worth—pun intended—a shot.

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