Tag: Newtown

Threat

The kids and I were all packed up and ready to go to school this morning when my beloved wife, who was sitting at her desk feeling sick as a dog, told us to hold on a second.  She had just checked her email and there was something from the superintendant of schools.  Apparently, there was some unspecified threat made against the school system and the super was forwarding the information on to all of the parents.  The FBI had been notified and there would be police present at all schools today.

A quick discussion was had between my wife and the kids father and it was decided that we should keep them home today.  It’s the last day of school before Christmas vacation, so it’s not like we would be depriving them of any vital knowledge.  Nana and Papa were coming over today anyway, so we figured we’d try as hard as our sick bodies would allow us to have a bit of an early Christmasy kinda day.  When Jen called the schools to let them know the kids would be absent today, she got busy signals.  It sounds like our kids won’t be the only ones MIA today.

I know this is going to amount to nothing.  It’s just some asshole trying to feel important in the wake of Newtown, CT.  Still, why even mess with it?  If the risk of danger is 0.01%, that is too much risk.  Better to keep them home where the only danger is catching this bastard of a cold/flu/whatever it is bug that Jen and I have.

Now on a personal note, during the mom and dad discussion it was decided to not let the kids know exactly why they were being kept home.  So if you read this, you have to keep it to yourself, okay?  No telling the kids.  Thanks

 

Newtown

“We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we are powerless in the face of such carnage?” – President Obama

We need to demand change. I don’t know the solution. Chances are that no one does. Does that mean that we should sit idly by and let this happen again and again?

No. It means that we have to be creative. We have to rely on original thinking. We put men on the damn moon, you think that violence in our culture is beyond us? I do not.

Action is required. Change is required. Passivity is death. Inaction is death.

Stand up to this, Mr. President. I, for one, have faith in you.

A Modest Proposal: We Need to Tax Ammunition

A Modest Proposal

How much does a bullet cost?

I Googled “buy ammunition” and this site was the top hit returned.

Just a quick glance shows prices like, 1000 rounds for $225.00, or $0.225 per round.  880 rounds for $165.00, or $0.1875 per round.  My favorite headline on the site was 500 hollow point rounds for $285.00, or 57 cents a piece.

So let’s just say that bullets are not expensive.  Cheap, even.

Now let’s calculate how much the life of a human being is worth.  Incalculable?  How much is the life of a six year old child worth?  How much is the life of a school teacher in Connecticut worth?  How much are the lives of a class room full of elementary school kids worth?

I have no idea.  No one does.  Priceless?  That sounds right to me.  More than half a buck?  Duh, absolutely.  Obviously.  It’s insulting to even consider that.

So how is a bullet that exists for no reason other than to end a life worth less than a buck?  Worth less than a quarter?  How is that a fair trade?  We should change our system so that the value of a bullet is the same as the value of the life the bullet ends.  I would even be willing to sell the bullets at a massive discount.  How about we take that $0.57 hollow point bullet and add a tax to it.  I say we tax it at about 20 million percent.

0.57 * 20,000,000% = 0.57 * 200,000 = $114,000.

Compare $114,000 to the value of a human life and you are still getting that hollow point bullet at an obscene discount.  What a savings!  The 2nd amendment still applies.  You still have the right to bear arms.  You still have the right to be a gun owner whose chosen home security device is statistically more likely to end the life of either you or a member of your family, but now the price for your weapon’s ammunition more closely (but still not that close) equals the value of that which it was created to destroy.

It sounds like a fair plan to me.  Actually, it doesn’t, but it sounds more fair than the current system.

You Can Not Justify This At All

I’m not going to talk about the shooting in Newtown, CT today.  That evil speaks for itself.  My thoughts and best wishes go out to all of the people affected by this horror.

I want to talk about guns.  Within minutes of the news breaking, there were people all over the web giving the NRA propaganda word for word.  Gun control is pointless because the criminals don’t obey the gun control laws anyway.  The gun didn’t kill those babies, the man did.

I can’t stand it anymore.  How can you stand there and justify the fact that this guy was able to obtain a fucking cannon and bring it to an elementary school and slaughter children.  How can you possibly speak of the guns as if they are the fucking victim.  I can’t stand it anymore.  How many children need TO DIE before people stop spewing some outdated, inaccurate, pointless, EVIL political propaganda.  Did Charlton Fucking Heston go to that school today and pry that gun from the murderers cold dead hand?

That man’s rifle was a monster.  It was a cannon.  That was an instrument of death.  It has no purpose to exist other than to kill, kill quickly, and kill in large numbers.  And that asshole’s mom was able to obtain it legally.

LEGALLY!

The second amendment is not the issue here.  Legal restrictions on guns are not the issue here.

THE FACT THAT THE GUNS EXIST IS THE ISSUE HERE.

Maybe if manufacturing firearms outside of the military were illegal, our latest killer, and the killer from the mall shooting the other night, and the slime from the Batman movie shooting, and the kids from Columbine, and all of the others would have had a significantly tougher time bringing death to the innocent people around them.

One comment making the rounds on twitter tonight is that one person tried to sneak a bomb onto a plane and ever since the entire airline industry has been altered and every passenger’s shoes need to be inspected.  Yet this bitch kills children and their school teachers just a few days after another bitch killed holiday shoppers, just a few months after yet another bitch killed a bunch of people who just wanted to watch a movie… and nothing changes.  Heaven forbid we as a society did something to make our children safe.

All of the propaganda spewers talk about how the Constitution of the United States gives us the right to bear arms.  Well guess what, assholes, the Constitution of the United States gave us the right to own slaves as well and that evil was put away when the time came.  The second amendment will eventually be removed too.

Rant over… for now.