Editorial
At Last – Respite for Black Children
Anger and anguish aside, one needs to consider tiny facets before they can fully grasp the clinical simplicity and agency of this unspeakable deed. Valued at about US$500, the AR-15 Bushmaster rifle’s magazine holds up to 30 bullets. This gun is semi-automatic, meaning you get one shot per trigger squeeze. Considering that each of the dead in Connecticut was hit more than twice – some of the little children’s bodies were mangled with as many as 11 bullets each – Mr. Lanza may have pulled the trigger more than 100 times and changed his magazine more than thrice. Basically, his mother’s trips with him to target practice effectively paid off. But what was a mentally challenged boy doing with a weapon of this kind of destruction? How did he come by all these rounds of ammunition and also, by the three other handguns he left his home with? Surely, his mother neither needed this arsenal to protect herself after her divorce and neither can anyone say that the tough Obama economy caused enough to warrant preparation for an armed rebellion. Lastly, why would people who live in some of the world’s safest neighborhoods have guns that can cause the kind of damage that would prevent parents from looking at their little children one last time? One can only imagine what the town’s medical examiner and his colleagues were working with from the expression of pain on the face of someone supposedly used to the finality of death.
America’s constitution sanctions that people have a right to bear arms. The original intent of this, enshrined in the Second Amendment, was probably for the purposes of armed rebellion against a federal government that was overreaching and spreading tyranny. But when was the last time tyranny affected American lives? Besides, in being taxed enough already. this nation’s people have a right to demand the most they can from their law enforcement officials! In essence, the police have guns and sometimes, the citizens have even more powerful weapons. Many say these guns are for hunting. Others will cite their First Amendment rights – basically saying they are free to do as they please as long as it is legal under the law. Whenever someone goes off the rails and commits a crime like Lanza did, those in favor of guns – like the National Rifle Association [NRA] – say it is people, and NOT guns, that kill!
What a cavernous argument! Perhaps more children would have gone home to their parents if Mr. Lanza had only had a machete or a knife or even a club with nails. More people would have celebrated if even one little life had been spared. What an argument of this nature misses is that people, by their very nature, are only as violent as their options. Give them a sub machine gun and they will use this to fulfill their specific need and justify their actions.
Many say that their high powered sub-machine guns are for hunting. But how many deer or bears are you going to carry home with you after a hunting rampage with a sub machine gun? Secondly, to those who mention that these military style weapons are for defense, it is obvious that they do not understand robbers or those who plan to commit harm against their neighbors. For the record, if someone is coming into your territory, even a falling chair or glass can have the same impact on their nerves as a double barrel shotgun. Besides, we would understand why anyone would keep an arsenal in Wyoming or Kentucky. But why would anyone in Newtown, Connecticut possess more than 5 guns and enough ammunition to take over a small city? There are just not enough deer or petty thieves! Infact, for the pious, this could be a case of avarice – a cardinal sin!
Americans are, today, being forced to make lemonade out of the lemons they have been handed. One of those NRA endorsed senators, Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, even managed to break his lockstep stride with the gun people in being as affected as just about everyone else. ‘Never before have we seen our babies slaughtered,’ he exclaimed. Under our breath, we invite him to visit with the various city mortuaries. He adds: ‘It’s never happened in America that I can recall.’ Again, we have no choice but to pardon him for not seeing the carnage just below his glasses. And then he touches the heart of the matter: ‘I don’t know anyone in the sporting or hunting arena that goes out with an assault rifle, I don’t know anybody who needs 30 rounds in a clip to go hunting!’
Congratulations, Mr. Lanza! Your act was horrendous enough to twist the hearts of those that had refused to see things for what they really were. May your soul know the peace you could not find in this life. May your mother rest in peace. May each of the 20 children sprinkle us with angel dust from heaven; may their teachers know another heavenly calling in their next lives and may all of us left behind – especially white parents – push for better gun control as they are doing now. They may not know it yet – but they will have saved lots and lots of black American kids as well.
Dennis Matanda
Editor | [email protected]
Editors Note
Following a reader’s comment, this editorial was updated to include a cursory look at mental challenges, the African American psyche and making excuses for those who kill.
