Another American Shooting

Two dead and a University in California locked down whilst shooter at large.

Will they never learn.

God help the innocents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36429661

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the dead and those who have been so traumatised by this incident. It's another tragic incident and frankly makes me wonder when or if the Human Race is ever going to grow up.

The usual stupid political screaming match will start soon with the NRA yelling "2nd Amendment" in response to any attempt to bring about tighter gun control. What I don't get is why no one ever calls them on the lie about what it says. It does not say that every citizen has the right to bear arms.

The first sentence of the Amendment actually says

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

A well regulated militia, not any Tom Dick or Harry who wants a gun so he can pretend he's Dirty Harry. In point of fact the original text of the amendment in 1791 made it clear that the right to bear arms only applied to State Militia who were properly sworn in by the State Governor or his appointed officers in time of war and that private citizens would be permitted to carry firearms only when able to prove a demonstrable need (eg farmers could have a gun to defend their livestock against predators, certain business owners could own a gun to defend life and property from the many bandits of the time particularly in the frontier towns etc) and that it was for each of the State's Legislatures to determine who would qualify for such licence individually albeit within an overarching framework of Federal Law.

The State Militia later morphed into the National Guard, the American equivalent of our own Volunteer Reserve (eg Territorial Army or Royal Navy Reserve) but by that time many of the states, particularly those in the mid west either turned a blind eye to the private citizens who simply got a gun from places like county fairs or went to what is known as "shall issue status"

This means you will automatically get a firearms licence if you ask for one unless the state can prove you shouldn't and in a lot of cases people bought their guns first and only bothered to ask for a licence when challenged and got one then without any consequence for breaking the law in the first place. Even when things like semi-automatic weapons became affordable for Joe Bloggs the dutman these states have refused to do anything to control what firearms people can buy and the NRA is massively sponsored by the firearms industry to oppose even the mildest form of gun control. It actually took three tries to get a ban on private individuals owning an M16 with the M203 Grenade Launcher fitted through the US House of Representatives and nine states have still refused to ratify that. I'm not entirely sure why a guy who lives in a two bedroom semi detached house needs a 60 mm mortar on his garden but if he lives in Virginia he can have one perfectly legally with the same licence he used to buy his AR 15 semi auto copy of the M16 and his American made copy of the AK74. That's the licence he got with less money and less background checks than he went through to get his bank account and driving licence.

I wish I was making it up. I have American friends and one of them owns a Colt 1911 and a shotgun at home and even he doesn't understand how gun laws are still so incredibly lax over there. God, I really, really wish the yanks would wake the hell up and stop swallowing the NRA crap about "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."