After reading this article about the senseless Navy Yard shooting, I have several emotions and thoughts running through my veins.
The first emotion that I feel is an overwhelming sense of anger. I feel anger for several reasons. First of all, I feel anger that the security was not stronger at the Navy Yard. There is no excuse for there not to be greater security. The excuse that was given for there not being the usual number of security guards was because, they needed to spend less money due to government cutbacks. Clearly, we do have a spending problem in this country that we need to get under control, so thinking about cutbacks is a good mindset to have. However, given the unbelievable amount of money that the government wastes on a regular basis, could not they save money by cutting back on some of the rampant wasteful spending rather then putting lives at risk by decreasing security? Especially because this world is becoming increasingly dangerous and there are more lunatics out there than ever before. I guess that would make to much sense for the folks in Washington.
Secondly, I was angry that this psycho still had security clearance. That is insane. This guy was clearly unstable. First, he had an incident at an airport and was almost put on a no fly list because he would not calm down. Also he was hearing voices in the walls, ceiling and floor. This guy had serious mental problems, and how he slipped through the cracks is beyond me.
Reading this article, also made me think hard. Sadly, these unthinkable acts by lunatics are occurring at an alarming rate. From Sandy Hook, to the Aurora movie theatre and even all the way back to the Virginia Tech shooting, these tragedies should not be happening. So, whenever something this horrible happens, it makes me stop and think about the gun control debate.
I am an advocate of gun rights, responsible people should be able to buy a gun if they so choose. However, I see no problem with making people who want to buy a gun go through a background check. Also, we need to invest more money in mental health research. Maybe if those steps had been taken, this tragedy, along with many others, could have been prevented.
It's interesting to note how many people may agree with what you say in principle, yet how difficult the politics is in practice on so many of these issues. I'm sure that you would have 80+ percent support for funding security on military installations, and yet the actual question of what is wasteful spending becomes so difficult in practice. Foreign aid and "welfare" are the most popular items, but most people don't include entitlements like Medicare and Social Security in those items, which is where the real money is, and of course defense, another expensive item which in this case is the thing we would need to spend on. Gun control is another difficult one: there are a lot of things with a great deal of support, but the politics is always tricky. Good points all around.
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