NRA Shame on You!

In a press conference today, the NRA had the gull to be arrogant and to offer lame excuses as to who was to blame for the mass murder at Sandy Hook elementary. It is as clear as it possibly can be that there is no reason for citizens to have access to automatic weapons of any kind. For them to not stand up and say that a ban of the automatic rifle, or of high compact cartridges is completely unsatisfactory and arrogant of them.

They wanted to give some serious talk about a meaningful solution to the problem, and all they did was insult the American public, and the memory of those 20 children killed on December 14, 2012.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the only way to fix the problem of violence is to get rid of automatic weapons, I wish it were that easy. But removing those type of weapons does decrease the potential for mass murders by a gun man.

Violence in of itself is a major cause for our issues when it comes to mass murders. The lack of mental hospitals or proper access to mental health professionals is also a major issue that has to be addressed. The Sandy Hook shooter was clearly having mental issues, and while his mother may have tried her best, she was not a trained mental health professional, something that may have made a major difference in this case. People need to be free to ask for help, and to know they can get it.

Case in point, when I was feeling depressed over loosing my business, I had requested to meet with a therapist through the only available resource I could, City Health Plan for the Homeless. I was only able to get 15 minutes of talk time with the therapist once a week. That was not enough time to dive into any issues of value that could help me. Thankfully, I had other resources I could pull from to help me deal with the issues.

But what if I was more distressed? Fifteen minutes of talk time is not enough for anything dealing with mental health. The chances of someone getting real help doesn't truly exist. That person could easily fall through the cracks and end up getting a weapon off the streets and kill as many people as they wanted to.

I agree with the general assessment that there is NO easy answer to stopping the mass murders by gun men. But, I can not sit back and agree with the NRA or others that say that not removing a mass murder type of gun as an automatic riffle is acceptable either. They and the high capacity cartridges for ammo must go.

We as humans can not continue to do nothing. It tarnishes the memory of all the people who are victims of murders, either it be mass murders such as Sandy Hook, or street killings.