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Jim Doherty's avatar

JIm yes the Post is to be saluted for its AR-15 project but, as those demented photos acompanying your piece make chillingly clear, this is a sick, sick country we live in and I doubt any journalistic effort, no matter how well done, can even begin to cure what ails us. The statistics tell the tale. More than 400 million gun owners in this country . . . . 20 million AR-15 style weapons in private hands . . . 500 companies manufacturing AR-15 style guns and accessories . . . As a Poynter Institute report put it last year, the AR-15 has become "the poster child" of right-wing advocacy of gun ownership. By now it has become only too clear that no matter how many children are slaughtered by wackos using this or other firearms, no matter how wrenching the stories their bereaved parents have to tell, no matter how upset the rest of us may be, it is too late to stuff this genie back into the bottle. Of course journalists should continue to keep this issue on the front burner and of course those who feel strongly about it should continue to push for change. But . . . profoundly depressing, this. At 85, I wish I could see a way out but I can't. Can you? Can anyone?

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Thomas L Mischler's avatar

I've read other accounts of the destructive capacity for this particular weapon - as I recall, one was from a surgeon who had struggled to repair such damage. Unfortunately, these arguments are lost in the overall psychosis among a large portion of the American electorate that caused British columnist Dan Hodges to observe in his tragic tweet from 2015:

"In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over."

I distinctly recall the vote in the Senate not long after the Sandy Hook massacre, when senators openly and unabashedly caved to their NRA overlords, and then offered one pathetic, disingenuous excuse after another for their vote. Even the most watered down attempts to prevent the sale of guns to those who were likely to use them in mass shootings was voted down, mostly because the NRA wants absolutely no restrictions whatsoever on the sale of guns. The reason is quite simple: more guns = more profits for the gun manufacturers who fund the organization.

But the biggest problem is people like the congressman and his family shown in the photo: the "Charlton Heston crowd" that equates gun ownership with strength, courage, righteousness, and all that they believe is good about America. With this attitude, any and all attempts to restrict ownership and use of any gun at any time are viewed as attacks against the bedrock principles of American freedom, strength, and independence. It's like a yes vote to lock up Superman in a cell filled with kryptonite - how could anyone possibly be in favor of destroying "truth, justice and the American way"?

The greatest fear of gun safety legislation from the right is not that it won't work, but that it will. Because when such legislation does pass, and when gun deaths are reduced as a result, it might just put a crack in that façade of righteousness that has sustained the pro-gun movement thus far. And that is why it is so essential that we continue to work hard to support such common sense measures, and to hold our elected officials accountable when they refuse to support our efforts.

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