The Outrage at Union Station
15/02/24 05:07
February 15, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 9) - Mass casualty shootings can happen anywhere at anytime. And it happened again yesterday when gunfire broke out at the conclusion of a parade and celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs' recent Super Bowl victory. At the time of this writing, there is at least one person dead, more than 20 injured - most of those children - and an entire community emotionally scarred. What should have been a joyous event evoking a pleasurable lifetime memory is now forever soiled by this act of senseless violence. Why did it happen? The police will be spending the next hours and days attempting to figure out the motive of the shooter or shooters. However, in a deeper sense, we already know the answer. This sort of tragedy happens daily in the United States because of the prevalence of easy-to-obtain automatic weapons. When one watches video of the atrocity that happened at Kansas City's Union Station yesterday, you can clearly hear the "pop-pop-pop-pop" of an automatic weapon being fired. Who brings such a hideous device to a football rally and for what purpose? Why on earth do we allow the sale and possession of military-style weapons by civilians? We don't allow them to have rocket launchers, flame throwers or nuclear weapons. Automatic weapons that are designed for only one purpose, to kill human beings, should be no different. Regardless of what gun companies, gun organizations and right-wing nut jobs claim, the Second Amendment is not a blank check. Just as it is the case with every other aspect of the Constitution, reasonable limits can be imposed. Just as you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theatre, you shouldn't be allowed to bring a weapon of mass destruction into one, either. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Second Amendment is not a hunting license. Kansas City will bury its dead. The wounds will eventually heal. But none of the hundreds of thousands of people who attended the rally or watched it live on television will ever again be able to drive by Union Station without remembering the carnage that occurred there yesterday. Until we enact reasonable restrictions against the sale and possession of automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, outrages like the one that happened at Union Station will continue. May God - and our elected leaders - protect our people from senseless gun violence. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.