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Health & Fitness

Shooting the American Dream

Response following the Dark Knight shooting.

I cant get a thermos of coffee into a movie theater. I suppose if i did and I was busted.. some seventeen year old kid would ask me to leave.

Its probably illegal to bring in food or drink from the outside into a movie theater. I will bet there is a law on the health codes. What is not illegal in our country, is for a young person to by killing machines, guns designed for military use and thousands of rounds of ammunition for the same.

Now given the fact that a lot of people seem to believe this is necessary to guarantee our personal freedom and safety, and that others think this is very cool (owning assault weapons with enough fire power to kill several people in seconds), these weapons proliferate and organizations see to it that the congress is lobbied sufficiently to perpetuate their manufacture and legal sales.

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Unfortunately, there are also a lot of angry and disturbed people in the country. There are a lot of mentally ill people and clinically depressed. There are many people desperate for attention who have some huge axe to grind with their families, with their communities...with the country...with life itself.

If America presents a moral to the planet it is that might makes right. Might is a mix of economic and military powers...but when push comes to shove, we go for the guns.

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And, as General Powell once indicated, you do not go to war without superior weapons. growing up in such a tough country it is impossible to escape this moral as it is pumped to us through the news of our foreign policy, and through countless dramas exploiting our lust for physical power.

From the cartoons on, children are raised to understand that violence is laudable, that war is inevitable and that only fools are "unarmed." Consequently, one day you may sit down in a theater or even a church...and gunfire will erupt. Within minutes scores of people will be wounded and many dead. If you are there and survive you will be traumatized for life. If you are not, you will hear of one more "Columbine." Leaders will express "shock and sorrow," talk will go around for a day or two, details will slowly come out as to why a madman makes a mad decision.

But nothing substantial will be done. This "shooter", as we now call mass murderers, (sounds more like a participant in a sporting event), had very sophisticated killing weapons....weapons designed expressly to kill people and to kill as many people as possible very very fast.

The two Glock 40 caliber handguns are enough to dispatch a group of people in short order. A shotgun, although designed for birding, has the advantage of not requiring accurate aim to maim many people quickly.

But the real piece of work in the arsenal was a .223 caliber assault rifle with a 100 round drum magazine. Now say what you like about a need to have guns for self defense.... You do not need an assault weapon in any normal conceivable defense situation short of war. This kid was loaded for a war. 58 people were wounded and 12 were killed, the large part by gunfire. The weapons worked very well. Smith and Wesson, Glock and Remington should be very proud of such a real life display of the effectiveness of their designs. And hats off to all the people who support them by buying their weapons.

Now the question is, since there is obviously an arms race going on in the country....and any kid can legally pile up the makings for a massacre within a few months...unnoticed, unchecked....

What do we do? We can make the decision to upgrade our own stockpile, we can start packing if we haven't begun, or can consider assault weapons as extensions to our personal security. We can buy bigger and better guns.

On the other hand, we may start lobbying our congress ourselves....we can send emails, make calls, join organizations that oppose violence, that support weapon bans or limiting legislation, we can speak up...about our disgust with this situation. In a word...we can take action to change this senseless state of affairs. The third option is the sheep's choice. Most of us will do what we have always done....nothing. And so Columbines will be followed by Dark Knights.... The weapons industry will profit enormously, the arms trade will continue to be outstanding, and we can perpetuate the slaughter for countless generations to come, all the while touting peace and liberty and freedoms.

The American Dream is shot. It won't be saved by more shooting, in movie theaters or in theaters of war. We can not extoll violence as a nation and personally, and expect that people will use this judicially. From assault weapons at the movies to drones in Pakistan...the innocent are being slaughtered by our violent designs.

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