Tag Archives: Newtown shooting

No need to say killers’ names out loud

Crime_scene1

President Obama has been taking flak for declining to refer to radical Islamic terrorists by that name.

He’s playing a curious game of omission that puzzles some of us.

Accordingly, I’ve decided to play my own similar game. I’m no longer going to refer to mass murderers by their names.

I’m not alone in this symbolic decision. Some media outlets have done so already. I’m all for that decision.

There’ve been so many of them now, going back, I suppose, to the 1966 murder from the top of the Texas Tower at the University of Texas-Austin. I’ve referred to that killer by name many times in the past. I won’t do so here — or ever again. He was killed by police officers.

Since then, well, we’ve had a number of them. The recent string of mass murders began with the Columbine High School massacre. It’s been a non-stop string of them ever since.

I will acknowledge having in the past referred to the two shooters at Columbine, to the madman at Newtown, Conn., to the (officially) alleged shooter in Charleston, S.C., and to the monster who killed those people in Orlando, Fla., by name already. Yes, there have been others. Too many others, to be sure.

My declaration came after the Orlando shooting, though.

When the Charleston suspect goes on trial, it will be difficult to refrain from identifying him by name, but I’ll give it a go. Maybe I’ll just refer to him as “the defendant.” Does that work?

The guy who shot those Dallas police officers to death this past week now deserves to be cast into oblivion. He’s dead, too, along with most of the aforementioned gunmen.

To mention their names is to call attention away — if only for an instant — from the victims of their heinous actions.

So, to assuage my own feelings, I hereby pledge to refrain from mentioning these monsters’ names out loud.

Will it take our minds off the evil acts they committed? Hardly. We all know what they did and we feel no less pain over the tragic loss of life by refusing to mention their names.

There. I feel better already.

More guns means less mayhem?

guns

The processing of the latest gun-violence massacre is continuing across the nation — perhaps even the world.

Nine people were gunned down in Roseburg, Ore., this past week and we’ve heard the mantra from gun-owner-rights advocates: If only we could eliminate these “gun free zones” and allow more guns out there …

The idea being promoted — and I haven’t yet heard from the National Rifle Association on this — is that more guns in places such as Umpqua Community College, where the Roseburg massacre occurred, could have stopped the madman.

NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said infamously after the Newtown, Conn., bloodbath that killed 20 first graders and six teachers, that the “only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.”

I’m not in favor of disarming American citizens. I believe in the Constitution and the Second Amendment, although for the life of me I still have trouble deciphering its literal meaning: “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.”

The question has been posed: When did “well-regulated Militia” get translated to meaning the general population? Still, the courts have ruled time and again that the Constitution guarantees firearm ownership to all citizens. I’m OK with that.

But I am not OK with the idea that more guns means less violence, less mayhem, less bloodshed, fewer deaths and injuries.

Surely there can be a way to tighten regulations gun ownership in a manner that does not water down the Second Amendment, one of the nation’s Bill of Rights.

If only our elected representatives could muster the courage to face down the powerful political interests that simply will won’t allow it.