Thinking about Aurora
23 July 2012
Like everyone, I’m shocked, saddened and angered by the events that unfurled in Aurora last thursday night. After reading a lot of the coverage web and print, Adam Gopnick’s post on The New Yorker’s blog—posted mere hours after the news in the night—strikes home to me the most:
In America, it has been, for so long now, the belief that guns designed to kill people indifferently and in great numbers can be widely available and not have it end with people being killed, indifferently and in great numbers. The argument has gotten dully repetitive: How does one argue with someone convinced that the routine massacre of our children is the price we must pay for our freedom to have guns, or rather to have guns that make us feel free?
There must be a middle-ground to this nonsense… And to think our [canadian] registry was terminated this spring. Sigh.
By the way, the article Gopnick refers to (Battleground America, Jill Lepore’s examination of that second amendment, published three months ago) is a must read on the subject if you wish to shed light on the intricacies of the constitution. Having Aurora in mind while reading it now kind of makes it even more depressing.