Yet another US gun tragedy. Thoughts are difficult; words even more so. Questions are directed horizontally and vertically. There is an overwhelming sense of despair, alongside anger and frustration. No country is immune, whatever the legislation on gun ownership. Slicer has posted before on a similar situation, and his memories are stirred that this sort of thing has also happened in the UK, despite different gun laws than the US. He imagines the feelings of communities and families bereaved are the same the world over. In the wake of the Dunblane school shooting in Scotland these songs emerged, the first with the permission of its original author, despite the lyrical additions. They seem just as pertinent to Connecticut, and indeed to other similar tragedies. Slicer endorses the sentiment.
We Western folk are proud of our ideas, and our hand-me-down ideologies - so much so that they sometimes get in the way of us seeing objectively or just doing the right thing. We're afraid to let them go. However, we have from time to time seen progress - when folk find the courage to let go of what they have held dear and believed/justified for so long, and change track.
In 2005, the Provisional IRA decommissioned its weapons - purportedly burying them in the ground under vast amounts of poured concrete in front of select witnesses. Whilst our lives in Northern Ireland have not been trouble-free since, there is no doubt that this act paved the way for the much less violent society in which we now live (recent protests and threats notwithstanding). Lets see others bury their guns rather than their/our children.
It's long past time that gun ownership was restricted in the US. Whether the founding fathers were right in their time is not the issue. The issue is what is right now.
How long to sing this song?
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