The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    jollyroger's picture

    Today I am a (gun)man

    By jollyroger on Wed, 10/23/2013 - 12:14pm |

    Attendant upon the catalog of horrors surrounding the latest school shooting atrocity, a peripheral editorial offense.

     

    Multiple news outlets, when alluding to the perpetrator of this crime, have referred to him as "the gunman".

     

    Now there are traditions in which at the age of 13 a male child is considered to have attained majority, and can serve as an adult for a variety of purposes.

     

    We may agree or disagree as to the actual maturity to be attributed to a 13 year old, but surely a more sensitive editorial policy would not extend to a 12 year old the appelation "man".

     

    Alternative usages might be "the killer", "the shooter", etc.  But surely, "the gunman" is not appropriate for a middle school student.

     

    It may, parenthetically, be elucidative that our gun obsessed culture so easily slips into  jargon that equates firepower with manhood.

     

    One is reminded of the bushmaster advertisement that goes some distance down this very road.

     

    Stop the madness--confiscate the guns. 

     

    The parents of this child would surely have been better off if some benevolent agency had visited their home on the night before the tragedy and relieved them of their 9mm Ruger Semiautomatic pistol.

     

     

    Comments

    I read about these atrocities all the time and have written about the new dangers our children confront in this new age.

    There is one gun for every human being residing in this country. 

    Control is gone. Forget Law & Order.

    I mean it's GONE.

    The newest news has to do with a gun nut who happens to be a Representative in our Congress. Her son left some gun unguarded in a unlocked garage and God only knows where this gun will end up after some B&E expert? stole the automatic rifle.

    I have no idea what to do about this anymore.

    the NRA won a long time ago.

    Just assume everyone has a gun.

    And assume that babysitters will go to the bathroom and babies will shoot one another.

    the end


    by Richard Day on Thu, 10/24/2013 - 1:05am

    Do you know that it is easier to get a gun and drugs in some neighborhoods then it is to get fruit and vegetables?  Our priorities have got to change. 


    by trkingmomoe on Thu, 10/24/2013 - 1:46am

    Bearing in mind that to a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail, I speak as a (rehabilitated) plaintiffs' counsel.

     

    Why ought not Sturm, Ruger & Co. be answerable in damages for introducing into commerce a defectively designed product, viz, one failing to incorporate the latest safety feature,a trigger which can only be pulled by a person wearing an RFID chip which is queried by a mechanism enbedded in the gun?

     

    Oh wait--that's  off the table, because we have federal legislation immunizing gun manufacturers (special for them....) from the ordinary operation of tort law.

     

    As you said, the NRA has won. ..


    by jollyroger on Thu, 10/24/2013 - 10:52am