Garnet's Life Adventures

finally a gun bill?

Before I get started on today's topic of gun control, I wanted to put this link from Life is RANTastic up since it relates to my post from yesterday about Paris Hilton and is just so funny I think everyone should read it!

So back to today's point . . . in reading the BBC news this morning since I'm still waiting on the freakin reagents to arrive! I read how the US House has passed a gun control bill and now it's up to the senate to make it happen so to speak. This new bill would require states to have automatic reporting of mental health/criminal records into some sort of database which in turn would be double checked against potential gun buyers. That sounds like a good idea, right? I think another big plus for this bill is that it's being backed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and we all know how powerful they are! I guess the only draw back to this bill is that all those who have guns now are exempt from this bill and I'm sure there are people out there who fall under this category who shouldn't have guns but already do. BUT then again, trying to track everyone down would be such a palaver!! Interestingly there has not been any gun control legislation passed in over 13 years and back then it was to ban some assault weapons. I'm 90% sure that it shouldn't have taken 13 years and so many deaths to get something like this passed, don't you agree? Let's think about all the school shootings in the US since 1994:

• Richland High School shooting - Lynnville, Tennessee, November 15, 1995


• Frontier Junior High shooting - Moses Lake, Washington, February 2. 1996


• Pearl High School shooting, Pearl, Mississippi, October 1, 1997


• Heath High School shooting, West Paducah, Kentucky, December 1, 1997


• Jonesboro massacre - Jonesboro, Arkansas, March 24, 1998


• Thurston High School shooting - Springfield, Oregon, May 21, 1998


• Columbine High School massacre - Littleton, Colorado, April 20, 1999


• Heritage High School shooting - Conyers, Georgia, May 20, 1999


• Santana High School - Santee, California, March 5, 2001


• Appalachian School of Law shooting - Grundy, Virginia, January 16, 2002


• Rocori High School shootings - Cold Spring, Minnesota, September 24, 2003


• Southwood Middle School tragedy, Miami, Florida; February 3, 2004


• Red Lake High School massacre - Red Lake, Minnesota, March 21, 2005


• Campbell County High School - Jacksboro, Tennessee: November 8, 200


• Platte Canyon High School shooting - Bailey, Colorado, September 27, 2006


• Amish school shooting - Nickel Mines, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, October 2, 2006


• Weston High School shooting, Cazenovia, Wisconsin September 29, 2006


• Springfield Township High School Shooting-Springfield, Pennsylvania, Dec. 12, 2006


• Henry Foss High School - Tacoma, Washington, January 3, 2007


• Virginia Tech massacre - Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007

In my mind it's taken a bit too long for such legislation to be enacted, but who the hell am I? Most in DC would probably just call me an ex-pat & write my opinions off.

Labels: politics, thoughts

posted by Sara @ 12:07 pm