How Could This Have Happened?
I haven't followed any of the coverage concerning the Virginia Tech massacre, except what's been posted about it on Sooey's, but I need to know: Has the perennial question been asked yet? You know, the one that always gets asked when things of this nature happen in the United States:
"How could this have happened?"
Don't tell me. It was a rhetorical question. My asking if, "How could this have happened?" has been asked yet, I mean. Oh - and if it has:
Besides, the talk shows are already all over it. Rutger? You are so over you may as well be Don Imus. Make way for Virginia Tech.
It's tragic, tragic, tragic. We all see it, hear it, smell it. But what makes it all so much worse is - what to do now? I mean, I think the United States is so hopelessly lost up its own ass that this whole gun culture thing, well, it's here to stay, forever and ever, amen. There is, in my ill-informed opinion, nothing much anyone can do to prevent this very thing from happening all over again next week at another school. There doesn't even seem to be any real will to address the root of the problem - which is that guns are obviously very easy to obtain by anyone who wants one.
And who the hell wants a gun?
And yes. I know. It's happened here in Canada, too. Which makes us double-squared guilty because we've elected a gun friendly government when we absolutely didn't have to - unlike in the United States where the NRA is so unbelievably powerful, that it doesn't matter if you're a Republican or Democrat voter - you're S.O.L. if you don't believe in every nut's God given right to bear arms - as long as he hasn't already bared arms, if you know what I mean. Stephen Harper, don't forget (never, NEVER, forget), is an Alberta first guy who came out of the Reform Party and it was gun-loving Albertans who, with help from the NRA, screwed over the gun registry to the tune of millions of dollars.
Yup. The NRA is watching our gun control legislation very carefully and lookie here, isn't this a coinkidink, but - Stephen Harper, Alberta Separatist and former Reform party leader - is Prime Minister of Canada.
I know, I know - my tinfoil hat is on too tight.
Or is it? I mean, it wasn't me who went on and on and on about the gun registry cost overruns and promises to scrap it and stand behind the law-abiding gun-owners (which is all you have to be to get a gun to massacre 30 people, you know - law-abiding) instead because... well... why?
Anyway, as I noted on Sooey's (to the dismay of many, I might add) I found it highly ironic that one of the heroes of the massacre was an elderly Jewish professor who had survived the Holocaust AND an escape from Communist Romania, only to be gunned down in a hail of bullets in the good ol' U.S. of A.
That he was still teaching at 76 turned out to be a good thing for the students he helped escape the gunfire as he made his last stand, but - Geez Louise - that's some retirement policy, eh? Only in the United States - work until you're murdered.
Okay. Too early. I know. But the tragedy + time = comedy equation is, well, I mean - HOW MANY TIMES DOES THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN BEFORE AMERICANS FIGURE OUT - IT'S THE GUNS, STUPID!
At least, (with a nod to Jan Wong), unlike here, they can eliminate language laws as a suspect.
But still, Smug R Not Us. We elected Stephen Harper and the New Conservative Government of Canada, a gun friendly, tough on crime, group of wackos who have been in lock step with every Republican style policy of the United States government - including the War on Terror, meddling with the Judiciary, appointing Social Conservatives wherever possible, and speaking out for all those law-abiding gun-owners who want the right to bear arms here, just like their brethren in the good ol' U.S. of A.
