It didn’t take long for the quackpots at Rebane’s Ruined Nation to start quacking over my Kevlar cartoon. I’ve been accused of trashing the 2nd amendment and the absolute right to keep and bear arms.
Never mind that bullets are now the number one reason for American child mortality in the 21st century, a statistic you would only expect in some war-torn third world shithole. The fright wingers will try to skew those numbers by adding unrelated infant deaths, but the sad truth is we boomers can’t brag about the horror of having to walk twenty miles in a blizzard as the biggest hurdle to education anymore.
So what can we do about it? There are already so many of these high powered weapons on the street that banning them seems like a lost cause. Maybe so, but you do have to start somewhere. Thompson machine guns were restricted out of existence in 1934, along with sawed-off shotguns and silencers. It is possible.
First off, we could end the revolving door at our jails and prisons. Progressive policies toward criminal behavior have done little but embolden career crooks and encourage amateurs.
Next, when they do get out, states with little or no regulation make it easy for almost anyone to walk into a store and walk out loaded for bear. Background checks and waiting periods might make at least slow down an impulsive psychopath.
And then there is the epidemic of mental illness in America. There is no consensus there either. The thought of forced incarceration sets off alarm bells on both sides of the aisle. Plus no one wants to bear the costs involved.
So, again, what do we do?
We do nothing but offer thoughts and prayers or write letters to the editor demanding change.
It won’t ever be solved until one side or the other manages to get a veto-proof majority that can settle the argument once and for all. It might take amending the constitution, which even sets a higher bar. Don’t hold your breath.
In the meantime, well, there’s Kevlar Kids.
Simplistic, you say? Got a better idea?
In addition to justice system and mental health issues, I feel that the decline of the nuclear family is much to blame. There are too many reasons for this decline to try to list them here but there can be no doubt that many characteristics of family life have changed in recent decades and not much for the better. A problem associated with this is that there is no way to legislate its improvement.