I don't entirely agree with Costas, but I also don't have a problem with him speaking his mind, and without question we as a country have suffered numerous tragedies caused, or at least enabled, by mentally ill people coming into the possession of guns. Only a fool would say otherwise. I don't personally believe the answer to this is more gun control, but can't we at least have a dialogue on this?
Yes we as a country, and a planet, and a species have suffered numerous tragedies caused, or at least enabled, by mentally ill (or mentally healthy, since violence is part of human nature) people coming into the possession of guns. True dat, no denying it.
The same is also true of knives, hatchets, baseball bats, chainsaws, golf clubs, tire irons, cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, toxic gas, anthrax, tanks, poison... and a thousand other things.
Granted, guns do make it particularly easy to kill a larger number of people in a shorter space of time than most of the other things listed. This is true.
But like a knife, for instance, the gun has a legitimate purpose in the right hands (self-defense or cutting a steak) and can be put to horrible use in the wrong hands (murder, injury)
So what exactly would be the purpose of this suggested dialogue? The legitimate need for self-defense, home protection, hunting, law enforcement, etc will remain no matter how long we dialogue about it... so I don't see the point.
I agree that it is sad and unfortunate how quickly a gun can be put to murderous use against multiple people... it leads to some very tragic, but still rare, headline-grabbing shooting sprees none of us are happy to see on the news.
But such are the times we live in... that's just something adults accept.
We live in a time where technology makes many very pleasant, and many very unpleasant things possible. Most technology is a double edged sword. Nuclear energy, the internet, guns, genetic engineering... all have positive uses and negative uses. We should never abandon something entirely and lose the positives because of the negatives.
People say they just want commonsense legislation and for it to be enforced... sure, sounds good. I think we already have that. Just accept, as an adult, that people committed to doing nasty shit will always, always get around such measures. Just like all the shoes taken off and shampoo put into small bottles on airplanes, and expensive scanning equipment. Someone dedicated enough will find a way around it. Guaranteed.