There are so many urgent political, social and environmental crises demanding my time, mental energy and dollars that gun control, while really important, doesn't usually make it to the very top of my list. But I wanted to append to my post about the murder of Dr. George Tiller the observation that stricter gun control is an intrinsic part of quashing anti-abortion, anti-women terrorism. For such a small proportion of our population, the NRA still has an absolute stranglehold on politicians, including Democrats. Way too few of our cowardly elected officials are willing to risk their jobs by taking a strong stand against semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles, whose raison d'etre, after all, is not target practice with squirrels but mowing people down in large numbers and penetrating cops' body armor.
Not that we needed any further evidence that Dr. Tiller's murderer is unhinged (affiliation with fringe anti-government groups, supergluing the clinic's locks, assassinating the good doctor in his church), but a family member of the shooter said that the guy has had mental problems for years. Putting aside for a moment whether Roeder's relative is just trying to make a case for insanity, temporary or otherwise, in an attempt to lessen Roeder's sentence, I have to ask, how and why was this nut job allowed to get his hands on a gun?
It's a great country, with bigotry and ammo for all.
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