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<< PHP Warnings on or off?Monster hailstones in Auckland >> People have been suggesting that bloggers take a day of silence in respect of the shootings at Virginia recently. Well, my deeply respectful blog has taken many weeks of silence, but somehow this is not the reason.

So I'm going to share my thoughts on the whole issue.

Gun control

Over here in New Zealand, where we have actual gun control laws, it's somewhat difficult for the average joe to get his hands on a gun. If I woke up one morning, a bit upset and in a good mood for a gun wielding rampage, let's see what I could muster at a moment's notice...

• A large piece of 4x2 with rusty nails in it
• A well-used crowbar
• A squash racquet
• An empty bottle of Wild Turkey
• I have enough spare pipe in the garage to make a potato gun, but I'd need to go to the shops and get some potatoes
• Or, of I felt like a 20 min trip out to see my parents, I could steal a .22 rifle from Dad, a formidable weapon if you are a possum or rabbit.

I haven't even followed this story closely enough to know what sort of weapon the gunman used, but it doesn't really matter. I'll wager it was a semi-auto rifle of sorts, or a pistol with a fair sized clip. Certainly none of the weapons listed above.

With the "constitutional right to bear arms" I understand this makes it fairly easy for anyone to own a semi-automatic weapon or pistol. Or, at least easy to know someone who has one of these weapons.

America is now in the position where Americans need military grade weaponry to protect themselves against other Americans with military grade weaponry. To me, that logic is so totally fucked that I wouldn't know where to start in fixing things. Introducing tighter gun control laws isn't going to prevent this sort of thing happening - there are far too many guns in the wild, and it's going to take generations of propaganda to change the constitutional mindset.

Gun control is not the whole cause of the problem, but it is a part of the problem. A potato-gun-wielding nut job on a rampage is a lot less deadly than a nut job with a semi-auto. The rampages will still happen, but the story will end up as local trivia, not world headlines with 32 casualties.

America needs some strong leadership to see through these major social issues. << PHP Warnings on or off?Monster hailstones in Auckland >>
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