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Sure, the day after Christmas the nation was shocked that a bearded, long-haired cybergeek walked into his office at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield Massachusetts and killed seven co-workers. The guns did it. Commentators noted that Massachusetts has the strictest gun control laws in the United States and yet this killing took place in Kennedy territory. The guns did it, of course. The liberals, eager to defend their state and its gun control laws against those conservative freakouts who like their second amendment rights immediately put the blame on neighboring states without such strict gun control laws, citing New Hampshire first. It was almost as if the guns walked in and started firing. Never mind the gunman was a tad strange and on medications, had a gripe with the I.R.S. about a back-tax garnishment and flipped out. Never mind that materials to make explosives that could have leveled the entire building or maybe the entire block were found in his residence. The guns did it. (In case you're wondering about the title of this article, "Put The Blame On Mame" is the name of a song from way, way back in the 40's or 50's when the idea of blaming someone else for one's own actions was considered ridiculous.) Naturally, Michael McDermott put in a plea of innocent. I don't know that his plea involved insanity as the reason. The fact is, the guy is nuts. People who kill at random are crazy sociopaths. However, this man apparently had no record that would have precluded him from buying a gun in a gun-control state. It doesn't matter ... the guns did it. Or maybe New Hampshire did it. It couldn't have been Connecticut, Joe Lieberman is there defending his state from the Senate. It couldn't have been New York, Hillary is there about to defend her carpetbagging digs from the Senate. Wherever the AK-47, the shotgun and the semi-automatic pistol came from, they are the culprits. The guns did it. So do we put the guns in jail, or give them the death penalty? It is understandable that the families of the victims would be outraged against both the killer and the weapons. What is not understandable is the reaction of those who think guns or weapons of murder will ever be kept out of the hands of people who are crazed sociopaths bent on destruction. Nero didn't have guns. Genghis Khan didn't have guns. Alexander the Great didn't have guns. The history of mankind is one of a bloodbath, and while we in the United States would like to think we have such a civilized country with such prosperity that there's no need for guns and no reason for people to go crazy and kill, they're wrong. Sane people need guns to protect themselves from criminals, sociopaths, crazed drug addicts and plain old thugs. If it isn't terribly obvious, laws don't prevent crime and prohibition proved that making something illegal or difficult to get doesn't stop people from getting it. That goes for drugs today, and it would apply to guns if guns were outlawed. First, we stop blaming others and get our thinking straightened out. Then, we just might be able to figure out how to prevent sociopathic killings, including road rage, school shootings and workplace massacres. It isn't the guns (or the explosives), it's who has them and how they intend to use them! © Dorothy Anne Seese, 2000 Today's featured
columns: View expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Political USA.
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