July 2012

A very sane voice:

I’ve never held a handgun in my life. I did some rifle target shooting with the ROTC in college. That’s it with me and firearms. Does this make me less of an American? I think handguns are dangerous, and the more people who walk around carrying them the more dangerous they are. I also don’t understand why civilians need to possess AR-15 assault rifles, such as the one used by James Holmes in Colorado. They fire 10 shots at a time, and are intended for combat use. In civilian hands, they are by definition weapons of slaughter. Do you need one in your home?

I’m not sure how one can escape the logic of  “I think handguns are dangerous, and the more people who walk around carrying them the more dangerous they are.” Nonetheless, Ebert, like yours truly, doesn’t expect anything to change.

You know what? The hell with it. I’m tired of repeating the obvious. I know with a dread certainty that I will change nobody’s mind. I will hear conspiracy theories from those who fear the government, I will hear about the need to raise a militia, and I will hear nothing about how 9,484 corpses in a year has helped anything. That is a high price to pay. What depresses me is that half of my fellow countrymen are prepared to pay it.

The body count – Roger Ebert’s Journal

July 23, 2012