Why Twitter Sucks

I ache for what our society is becoming...

Technology and the Loss of Humanity

When's the last time you called an obscure friend?  Odds are that you do communicate, but when done it is through a social network or perhaps maybe a text.  With all of the other easier and less intimate methods of communication, why mess with something as clunky as actually talking to someone?

And this is spoken as a Gen Xer.  I'm not a digital native.  Indeed, we have an entire generation of people coming up that prefer these cursory, limited, and shallow communications.  Oh, sure, digital means have afforded many more relationships, and I've not lost the irony of this rant occurring on a blog.  However, it seems quantity has been traded for quality.

What can be done to deepen human relationships in the digital age?  I don't have answers.  But I do have a hell of a lot of Facebook friends.  

Very few of whom I'd like to call.

Sandy Hook Massacre and Next Steps

Bodies weren't even cold when pundits, politicians, and website comments filled the media that "something" needed to be done to prevent another Sandy Hook.  The loudest message is around some type of gun restrictions, bans, or outlawing.  

There's one problem: America is awash in guns.  Approximately 300 million guns exist in the hands of her 311 citizens.  The barn door has been left open, and the cow is no longer in the barn.  

With that as the backdrop, here are some of what is being proposed:

• Total ban on guns.  See the above!  The government may know that a specific citizen has a specific gun via the National Instant Criminal Background Check instituted in the '90's.  But that person might have given the gun as a gift, as my Dad did for me.  Or that person may have lost the gun, as my hunting partner did when his boat overturned.  Or that person may have had his ex-wife sell them in a nasty divorce, as what happened to my buddy.  Hence, the ONLY way we'll be able to ban all guns is via house-to-house search.  And with the numbers listed above, that means EVERY house.  Good luck with that; not only from a Constitutional standpoint, but also from an execution standpoint.
• Ban on "automatic" weapons, large magazines, etc.  Let's make something very clear: automatic weapons (one that fires multiple rounds with a pull of the trigger) are already banned.  There are very few owned by private collectors, and the application process to own these is stringent.  Semi-automatic weapons (one where just one round is fired with each pull of the trigger) are legal, and have been since their invention in the late 1800's.  As for limiting magazines, there's that whole cow/barn thing as well as it pertains to magazines.  There are millions of high capacity magazines already in circulation.  Finally, the killer in the latest tragedy used guns that had 15 and 17 round magazines.  
• Register guns with a forensic footprint so they can be tracked.  It is true that every gun has it's own "fingerprint" that gets left on the bullet it is firing.  And a person with about two minutes and a small file can forever alter that fingerprint in such a way as to make the whole process moot.
• Tax guns and ammunition at an excessive rate.  While that will prevent future guns and ammunition to be sold, there's that troubling issue with the 300 million guns already in society.  As for ammunition, there are likely HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of rounds already in private hands.  Likewise, with reloading activity (the private construction of bullets and shotgun shells done by thousands if not millions of people), folks will be able to continue to crank out the production of ammunition, and subsequently launch a lucrative black market career, once factory manufactured ammunition is taxed to oblivion.  
• Hold someone fiscally "accountable" for the shooting.  While this worked great against "big tobacco," how will it exactly work against firearms?  Is the gun manufacturer punished?  The ammunition manufacturer?  The retailer that sold the gun and/or the ammunition?  And once that is put into place, and all of those companies are driven out of business, what happens to that cow that is already outside of the barn?  Likewise, once this legislation passed, will we then be able to sue Apple for folks texting or talking while driving and get into an accident?  Ditto "big alcohol" and drunk drivers?  Once that camel's nose gets under the tent, where does it stop?

Want to crack down on gun shows?  Fine.  Want to limit magazine size?  Knock yourself out.  However, the bottom line to all of this is regardless of what gets done, it cannot address the amount of guns, magazines, and ammunition already in our society.

So what do we do?  

Let's start and end with a hard look at mental illness in this country.  The most vulnerable of us are going untreated, and are being plied by the most unsavory of communications.  From first person shooter video games that actively train mass murder techniques to hate sites that actively encourage mayhem from their readers, instead of getting help our mentally ill are just getting pushed toward explosion.  

The bottom line in all of these massacres is that they were not committed by sane individuals.  No sane person could commit mass murder, especially against children of all people.  Insanity is the common denominator in these massacres.  Not guns.

But guns are such an easy scapegoat!  To non-gun owners, they're scary, and only hillbillies, rednecks, preppers, and teabaggers own them.  Just "get rid of them" and things will be OK.  What folks don't want to do is address the real issue - mental illness - and look under the rugs of things like privacy, medial history, family issues, substance abuse, media consumption, free speech rights and the myriad other things that go along with it.  That's too hard.

So "doing something" about guns will continue to be demagogued up until, during, and after the next massacre committed by a mentally unstable individual.  And when they interview those who knew that individual, another chorus of "I'm not surprised," will crop up.  And so on...

Anyone with any solutions, please post up.