{"id":6062,"date":"2015-06-28T10:41:15","date_gmt":"2015-06-28T18:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/?p=6062"},"modified":"2015-06-28T10:41:15","modified_gmt":"2015-06-28T18:41:15","slug":"will-we-learn-from-the-charleston-killings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/6062\/will-we-learn-from-the-charleston-killings\/","title":{"rendered":"Will We Learn From the Charleston Killings?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Oil

Oil on canvass illustration courtesy Michael D’Antuono.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Ralph E. Stone<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

June 28, 2015<\/p>\n

Dylann Storm Roof, a 21-year old white supremacist, is accused of murdering nine worshippers at\u00a0the historic Emanuel AME church in Charleston, S.C. \u00a0President Obama called the shootings “senseless murders” and suggested more gun control is needed in the wake of the tragedy.<\/p>\n

But in this violent nation of ours, there seems to be a disconnect between our Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms” and the number of mass killings in this country. Americans with guns kill thousands of fellow Americans each year. \u00a0And remember, the right to bear arms is not unlimited and does not prohibit all regulation of either\u00a0firearms<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0similar devices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Incongruous though it might be, while Charleston and the rest of the nation are mourning the dead, at the same time Charles L. Cotton, a National Rifle Association (NRA) member, was blaming one of the slain, Clementa C. Pinckney, a pastor and state legislator, stating, “And he voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members, who\u00a0might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church, are dead. Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.” \u00a0Does anyone really believe that if the worshippers were “packing heat” at the church, the shootings would have been prevented?<\/p>\n

It took the the December 2012 killing of 20 children and seven adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School to reach a tipping point, causing reasonable gun control legislation to be proposed at the federal level. However,\u00a0Congress failed to reinstate the assault weapons ban. \u00a0Other legislation failed to pass, including\u00a0tougher laws on straw purchases and illegal gun trafficking, efforts to increase school safety, keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, universal background checks, and\u00a0restrictions on the size of magazines so as to reduce the number of bullets that can be fired before reloading is required.<\/p>\n

Will the Charleston killings be another tipping point, providing the impetus for actual passage of reasonable gun control legislation at the federal level? \u00a0Certainly,\u00a0there will again be calls for federal gun control legislation, but unfortunately such efforts will probably be doomed because too many members of Congress\u00a0are obligated to the NRA lobby, in tandem with gunmakers and importers, military sympathizers, and far-right organizations.<\/p>\n

And after all the sound and fury is over,\u00a0the cycle of killings, hand wringing and mourning will likely continue\u00a0ad infinitum<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this violent nation of ours, there seems to be a disconnect between our Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms” and the number of mass killings in this country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1230,"featured_media":6063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1314,19,17],"tags":[2758,1650,1651,1507],"class_list":["post-6062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-news","category-opinion","category-politics","tag-charleston-masacre","tag-gun-control","tag-nra","tag-second-amendment"],"yoast_head":"\nWill We Learn From the Charleston Killings? - Fog City Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/6062\/will-we-learn-from-the-charleston-killings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Will We Learn From the Charleston Killings? - Fog City Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In this violent nation of ours, there seems to be a disconnect between our Second Amendment "right to keep and bear arms" and the number of mass killings in this country.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/6062\/will-we-learn-from-the-charleston-killings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fog City Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/fogcityjournal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-06-28T18:41:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fogcityjournal.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/plugins\/2015\/06\/blood-money.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"718\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"479\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ralph E. 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