step zero

After what happened yesterday in Arizona, what concerns me more than Sarah P trying to be coyly inflammatory in her graphics and rhetoric is the fact that this kid Jared Loughner, the shooter, had a lethal weapon, even though he is a certifiable nut whose delusional behavior had been noted several times by local police.

He's sufficiently unhinged to have gotten himself kicked out of his local junior college after five classroom or library incidents where police had to be called, but apparently had no trouble obtaining a weapon.

But why should he have trouble doing so? The NRA wants easy access to weapons for everyone including criminals, drunks, the insane, and the criminally insane, and thanks to them the gun business is booming (so to speak) in Arizona, whose dealers are happily supplying the weaponry for all sides in the Mexican drug wars. Weapons manufacturing and sales is one of the few growth industries left in the U.S.,

I've got nothing against the notion that every citizen should be allowed to possess a firearm for self-protection, as long as said citizens are in possession of themselves. But America's penchant for violence, especially gun violence, as the easy and natural solution to every problem has to be confronted and rooted out, like the disease it is. If the NRA doesn't like it, screw them.

I'm going to be very interested to find out exactly how Jared Loughner got his hands on the weapon he killed six people with, considering that he was well-documented and known within his community as a tinfoil hat type. If he bought it at a gun shop, I'd like to know whether the sales person looked into the history of his relations with the Tucson police department.

We're at step zero in this country with gun violence. Step zero is "this shit's gotta stop."

Click on the image for a larger view.