#

http://www.nealknox.com/alerts/msg00247.html

Feb. 29 Neal Knox Update – Details are still sketchy about the
first grade boy who killed a girl classmate in Michigan, but Dan
Blather put HCI spokesman Naomi Paiss on to blame it on the parent
who failed to properly store the gun.

Local television was reporting in the early evening that the
.32 pistol was reported stolen in December. There are now
national press reports that the gun was “allegedly stolen” and that
the boy brought it from his home.

President Clinton complained something to the effect: “if the
technology exists to make guns childproof, why aren’t we using it.”

Short answer: The technology doesn’t exist.

The Internet is buzzing with partisans from both sides roaring
at each other over what should be done, with a goodly percentage
saying ban all guns.

A higher percentage of both pro and anti-gunners were saying
blame the parents. But I saw one posting that claimed the boy’s
father and grandfather are both in jail for gun crimes; I have no
idea if that is correct, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Others are calling it a “hate crime,” since the boy is
apparently black while the girl was white. I don’t know what a
hate crime is.

One post moaned: “Please take our guns.” What do you care to
bet he or she doesn’t have one to take?

Another post pointed out that in trying to isolate a cause,
scientists attempt to locate changed variables. As the posting said,
we’ve always had gun availability, we’ve always had kids, we
haven’t had school shootings.

What’s new, he says, is incredibly graphic violence in movies,
video games and on television. But what’s also new is the
widespread use of mind-altering drugs on kids as young as two.

And the most significant new factor of all: The utter
disregard for human life evident in both a significant segment of
the adult population and an even greater segment of the youth.

How to fix the problem isn’t going to be easy, and won’t be as
simple as banning violent videos, building more prisons, banning
guns or posting the Ten Commandments.

Neither will nostrums like requiring trigger locks to be sold
with each handgun, or even imposing prison sentences on anyone who
doesn’t use them. With rare exception, those who fail to inculcate
respect for life are most unlikely to treat guns with any more
respect than they treat their neighbors, their own lives, or their
kids.

Therein lies the problem, and perhaps the solution. I don’t
know what the solution is; I do know what it isn’t.