How Politics as Usual, Enables the Mass Killings

Published on The Good Men Project 12/05/15

Another week – another mass killing. The alleged murderers, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple with a six-month-old girl, killed 14 and injured 21 people at Syed’s workplace in San Bernardino, California, Monday. They burst into a Christmas party at the Inland Regional Center, wearing masks, body armor, semi-automatic pistols, long guns, GoPros and carrying pipe bombs. They sprayed the room with bullets, gunning down Syed’s coworkers and others.They fled the scene in a black SUV, in which they would eventually be tracked down and killed by police.

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Their identities were not released to the public during the majority of the police search. This led to rampant speculation and political spinning. Left-leaning politicians claimed that this was likely workplace violence and yet another reason there needs to be more restrictions on guns. While right-leaning politicians suggested this had nothing to do with guns and was a well-planned attack and was therefore terrorism.

Yesterday’s horrific murder in the wake of Paris underscores we’re at a time of war whether or not the current Admin realizes it.  – Ted Cruz on Twitter

I refuse to accept this as normal. We must take action to stop gun violence now. – Hillary Clinton on Twitter

After every shooting, the left and right simply reaffirm their positions and nothing gets done to fix the problems. I wrote an article on my 6-step method to end gun violence, in which I proposed a compromise that could significantly reduce the amount of shooting deaths. It received so much criticism and from both the right and the left, that I followed up with an article about the loss of reason in America’s gun culture. There just seems to be no compromise on this issue and as a result, the death toll continues to mount.

For the right: Terrorists and mentally ill people should not be able to legally stock up on assault rifles, hand guns, body armor, and over 5,000 rounds of ammunition. In my 6-step method article, I proposed thoroughly checking out and registering every person who buys a gun. That met hard resistance from pro-gun advocates. But those on the right surely don’t want terrorists to easily get weapons. So how is the government going to know if we don’t track who is buying weapons and ammunition? The irony is the easy access to guns, the right fights so hard for, makes it easier for terrorists to get guns and kill us.

And if you think the answer is to arm everyone with guns, well that won’t work either. Killings happen in schools, sports arenas, places of worship, and government facilities where guns are never going to be allowed. And I won’t get into what horrible things would likely happen if millions of people who never carried weapons now started to.

For the left: Tashfeen Malik had sworn allegiance to ISIS and both her and Syed had all sorts of Jihad stuff on their computer and social media. They had built a factory for explosives in their suburban home and our intelligence agencies had no track of them. Don’t you think that’s a failure of our current administration and our intelligence? Maybe the right is right and we are at war with radical Islam?

While banning guns may seem like a logical solution, it is not a realistic undertaking. There are over 300 million guns in circulation in the US, that we know about. The second amendment aside, there’s no practical way to confiscate them (more difficult than deporting 12 million illegal residents). A reminder: Paris doesn’t allow guns and California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Outlawing guns will ensure only outlaws and terrorists have guns.

Ironically, each side has valid points. While weapons, such as guns, are too accessible to people who shouldn’t have them, we also have an expanding terrorism problem. So, I call on President Obama to unify both political parties so they can devise and enact real solutions that will actually reduce the violence against innocent Americans, once and for all.

And finally, if our politicians won’t come together to protect us, then we, the people, should come together to throw them out, and elect some who will.

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