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What About This…? 10.15.2015

By Wayne William Cipriano

Outside of a few nuts, with which we shall always be plagued, there is no one regardless of philosophical position, who would not flip that switch.  The switch?  The switch that would stop this slaughter of innocents by gun violence.  Everyone, yes, EVERYONE would flip it.

When the president spoke of routine he sent shudders up my spine, and yours, too.  Can you recall the place where the shooting before the last one took place?  I cannot.  Can you recall anything different said this time than last time? I cannot.  Do you remember anything about the collection of cards and candles, and stuffed animals, laid out where the tragedy before this last one happened?  I can’t either.

I guess since we accept stuff like automobile deaths as a price for convenience and freedom, it should not surprise us that other deaths are becoming…..routine.  Of course, auto accidents or even suicides by car are not directed at innocents, are not inflicted upon unknown others for some dark, inconceivably twisted reasoning available only to the deeply disturbed.  And, what about those individual killings, the non-mass murders that occur with such regularity that they are no longer reported because they have become…..routine.

No matter your position on the constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms, we all agree that these horrors have to stop.

So, we all agree that something has to be done.  Something…from disarming everyone to arming everyone, registering arms to controlling ammunition, testing, observing, reporting….something.  Why don’t we do….something?

I think one reason is very simple.  Very few of us trust our government to do the right thing and then to stop there.  To infringe upon our liberty just enough to make the difference all of us want, but no further.  We just do not trust the people some of us elect and the rest of us ignore, but just about all of us dislike, distrust, perhaps, even fear.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could read in the next paragraph an idea that would make sense?  That sounded like it would satisfy us?  Would save some of us?  Would flip that switch?

You would love to read it.  I would love to write it.

We’ve got to do something.

Don’t we?