If You See Something, Say Something

If You See Something, Say Something:  I heard that reminder repeated dozens of times yesterday while watching the reporting on the latest mass shooting here in America.  


Well, I'm going to say something.  

After seeing these despicable, grizzly acts of outright evil time after time after time and in ever-increasing numbers since the first school shooting horrified us almost 20 years ago with Columbine, it appears that a significant segment of our country really does seem to care more about protecting guns than protecting our children.

Like John Nitcy, my former colleague who wrote the letter shown below, I come from a family where several members have owned gun collections.  

We have also learned to use guns.  Some of us hunt; others just aim at bullseyes on targets. 

We have no assault rifles and cannot see any need to own them, especially considering the carnage they create in the hands of mad people------as we've heard about at churches, schools, airports, concerts, dance clubs, malls, etc.

Once again, I watched the all-too-familiar repetitive pattern unfold with yesterday's massacre of innocents in Florida: 

If you see something, say something.

Now is not the time to talk about gun laws.

We need to pray for the victims and their families.  [Yes, but why do these innocent people have to continue becoming victims?]

People thought the shooter was weird, especially because he liked to show off his guns and talk about killing animals.  

This is mental illness.  It's not the fault of guns.  

More effort needs to be put forth to make sure kids don't fall through the cracks while attending schools. 

This was an assault rifle-----the same weapon used in numerous other mass shootings. 


Even though I'm a news junkie, I finally turned away from the reporting because it felt too much like a bad bad rerun.  Just the faces had changed but not the stories of senseless slaughter and sadness.

I couldn't stand hearing and seeing it all again.  


Seems to me that a few common denominators could be easily and reasonably addressed. 

Yes, we need more efforts dedicated to dealing with mental illness.  After all, it does go hand in hand with people who kill.  

More importantly, however, we need some real, genuine effort aimed at least at reducing the opportunities available for troubled people to own assault weapons. 

Years ago, when people were suddenly dying because some crazy person had poisoned bottles of Tylenol, the company took responsibility by almost immediately addressing the relative ease with which a person could open those containers on store shelves.  

Of course, they did such a good job that some of us fumble fingers have a heckuva time breaking into our own bottle of Tylenol, Advil, etc. 

I can't say with certainty that people haven't died from tainted pill bottles since those days, but the problem was addressed quickly and seems to be a thing of the past, thanks to responsible people taking responsibility. 

For the life of me, I cannot understand the stubborn, ongoing resistance to reasonable gun laws in this country, where it has been declared that we will "KEEP AMERICA SAFE."  

We also have to remember President Franklin Roosevelt's famous saying:  The only thing we need to fear is fear itself. 

Well, granted there are dimensions of realistic fear, and many times for good reason BUT the unrealistic, unfounded fear that is so often spread among our society that "someone's gonna come and confiscate all our weapons" seems just that unrealistc.  

Hasn't happened, and I pretty much doubt it ever will. 

I also wonder if the folks who pushed for the Second Amendment way back when ever dreamed of  such things as assault rifles in the hands of every citizen. 

I guess this morning's post is getting to sound like a rant, but for God's sake and for the sake of innocents yet to come, could someone please take a lead in coming up with constructive ways to alleviate these routine slaughters.  

Thankfully, they haven't quite numbed the majority of us to the core just yet. 

There have to be answers, and if "America is Great," certainly there is leadership and compassion enough within our "greatness" to come up with workable solutions which will make us feel safer to go to the grocery store or send our kids off to school.   

Maybe go check with Tylenol for some ideas. 

Finally, I have included a very timely letter where my friend John's words kept reverberating yesterday. 





Responsible Gun Owners Need to Step Forward
Feb. 13, Bonner County Daily Bee

This letter is in response to Ken Thacker’s opinion on, “Mass shooters had a lot of fire power.”

I’ll start by saying that I grew up in a gun culture while living in North Idaho for 58 years. My uncle had one of the largest collection of Winchester rifles in Idaho and I have shot semi-auto shotguns all my life. 

I cherish the American tradition of hunting and the right to bear arms. I still spend many days hunting waterfowl with a firearm in my hands.

With that said, I totally agree with Ken’s article. It’s funny that the state won’t allow me more that three shells in my shotgun to shoot geese because they feel you will kill too many. 

But the state will allow clips in semi-automatic style assault weapons that are capable and have killed scores of people. The Las Vegas shooter fired more than 1,000 rounds. Really do we need to have the legal capability to fire that many rounds to defend ourselves?

We need stricter, responsible gun ownership in this county. You can look at any statistic you want and gun violence in this country is out of control. Other countries are willing to do something about it; why can’t this country? I am not afraid of the government taking my guns. I am afraid of mass shooting at malls, at-large public events such as concerts, and in our public schools. (Eleven school shootings have taken place in this country since Jan. 1)

The NRA isn’t making our country safer; opposing “bump stock” bans; large capacity magazines and clips bans, and arming our teachers isn’t the answer to our gun problem. The NRA believes that everyone should be packing a gun; I personally do not want to live in a war zone and it makes me very uncomfortable to be standing in the grocery line where someone has a gun on their hip. I totally support the items mentioned in Ken’s article. 

I would hope there are many more responsible hunters and gun owners who will be willing to communicate these views with our reluctant politicians to actually implement gun control policies. I feel that this would be a step forward in making this country safer.

JOHN NITCY
Sandpoint