Murderer Seung-Hui Cho - 24,000,000 Google listings.
Murderer Mark David Chapman - 2,460,000 Google listings.
Outlaw Jesse James - 16,600,000 Google listings.
Polio Vaccine Developer Dr. Jonas Salk - 491,000 Google listings.
All right, so there's a big part of our problem right there; the glorification of the criminal. Ever since Roger Ailes destroyed television news by merging it with the entertainment division, polluting the public's right to know by making the news subject to ratings and profits ("The World Will End At Ten P.M. Tonight!!! Details At 11"), we have had to live with the gratuitous, dramatic sludge ("Plastic Surgery For Dogs!") that is now the evening news (not you Jim Lehrer).
STEP ONE IN SOLVING OUR PROBLEM: YOU DON'T "GOT A NAME"
Why should Mark David Chapman get to be John Lennon's posterity buddy because in one sick second he destroyed fifty years of beauty and goodness? The Nazis knew how to erase people; give them a number. I propose NO MORE GLORY FOR MURDERERS. In the way that felons lose the right to vote, murderers should lose their public identities, their NAMES. All we'll hear on the news that night is, Murderer X left a note saying he didn't like rich people. For record keeping purposes, the government can number the X's, starting anew each year (example: X-1, 2007, X-20, 2008). People planning killing sprees (and that murderer last week carefully planned his - They'll remember MY name!) need to know in advance that they will gain NO FAME by killing. They'll be just another X. No guy wants to be just a number, especially if another guy is going to have his number next year (think Hideki Irabu). As an added bonus it will publicly spare their innocent families and their ethnic groups shame and retaliation.
IT WON'T WORK!
It will work. It works already. Over forty thousand people a night (unless you're the Devil Rays) sit mere feet from the baseball players they love, hate, would like to hug, or slug. There are no fences keeping the fans away, and the games are televised. Why then, do the same guys who "Wooo!!!" and holler into any available camera, and who are often sloshed on beer, why do these people not constantly run onto the field and disrupt the games? One reason only; baseball does not show them on camera when they do. Hear that Brian Williams? It is not worth the arrest (and possible loose fist from a cop whose team you just disrupted while they were about to tie it up, unless you're the Devil Rays), to do something that no one is going to see or hear about. The news needs to stop covering the murderers who run onto the field.
And while we're on sports, stop making murder an Olympic event: "The biggest school shooting EVER! Thirty two, thirty three counting the gunman!" Do I hear thirty five?
BUT THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW! THEY PRINTED THE UNABOMBERS MANIFESTO AND IT HELPED CATCH HIM!
There's a big difference between putting a guys picture up at the post office, and putting it on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Brian Williams: "It's newsworthy. We want the public to see inside the mind of a killer." Newsworthy? When a guy goes on a rampage because Liza can't work Vegas anymore, that will be news. Nothing new here.
THE NRA HAS MADE FIVE GROUPS RICH: ITSELF. GUN MANUFACTURERS. SLEAZY POLITICIANS. MAKERS OF TEDDY BEARS. AND THE FLOWER INDUSTRY.
Last weeks murderer should not have been allowed to have a gun under Virginia law (found to be a danger to himself) but the information never made it into a database because "there isn't enough money to put all of the already known names of people who should never be allowed to own a gun into a national database". Sorry, your child was killed due to clerical backlog. The NRA, with its hundred million dollars, has the money to buy politicians and sway elections. While they claim to champion the public, they don't care enough about your children, or you, to use some of that money to insure the safe distribution of their product. And why should they? Their members are immune from prosecution, thanks to President Earp.
NRA TALKING POINT: CARS KILL MORE PEOPLE THAN GUNS!
You want to see cars REALLY start killing people? Let's start selling cars EXACTLY the way we sell guns. No license, no registration, no engine numbers, no license plates, no database of sales, no background checks, no waiting period, NO NEED TO PROVE YOU EVEN KNOW HOW TO DRIVE, no engine off switches, no childproof door locks, no seatbelts, no BRAKES. How high do you think the car murder rate will go when you lose the right to sue any car manufacturer or car salesman for any reason thanks to President Dillinger? Newsflash: we make cars SAFER every day. The auto industry doesn't take it as a personal affront to every American's right to fly face first through the windshield with a naked man in her lap holding a martini and chatting on a cell phone, even though that right is guaranteed in the Constitution under "pursuit of happiness".
NRA TALKING POINT: MY RIGHT TO HAVE A GUN IS THE SAME AS A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE.
Great! Let's put the same restrictions on gun sales that we have on a woman's right to choose. Finally - a waiting period in most states! You'll have to get signed permission from your partner to buy the gun, you'll be informed that buying a gun may lead to breast cancer even though there's never been a correlation. In 38 states, you'll have to travel to another state to buy the gun, and abide by that states waiting period, even if it causes financial hardship to your family. If you're under a certain age, your father or stepfather will be informed that you are buying a gun, and you'll need his permission, even if you need the gun because he raped you. Finally, the Supreme Court can place limits on when you can buy the gun, even if you didn't know you needed it until now. Even if you are going to DIE without it. Enjoy being a girl!
NRA TALKING POINT: IF YOU OUTLAW GUNS, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS.
Every 7-11 and every supermarket you walk into has a sign on the counter: "We Check I.D. For Alcohol" (right next to "Please Don't Shoot Me, Register Has Only Ten Dollars"). Do minors get beer? Sure, about a zillion times less than they would without strictly enforced laws. By NRA logic, we should have NO laws, because locks are only made to keep honest men out.
NRA TALKING POINT: WE NEED OUR GUNS IN CASE WE HAVE TO DEFEND AGAINST THIS GOVERNMENT. LOOK AT IRAQ, LEBANON, THE PALESTINIANS, THEY'RE FIGHTING FOR THEIR COUNTRIES AND HOLDING THEIR OWN.
Does the word "topography" mean anything to you? So you're going to empty your Beretta at an Abrams tank and then.. what? Slip across the border? Run into the hills.. er.. the unmapped caves.. I mean, malls? Yeah, I guess that could work. All malls have the same ten stores. Maybe they would look for you in the wrong Pottery Barn. There hasn't been a census in Iraq, Palestine or Lebanon since the locusts. Your government knows your address, which bedroom you sleep in (from your MySpace page), your office fax number, and they're watching you through your computer right now. While they distracted you by letting you have your quaint little guns at home, which give you a false sense of ability to fight the United States Armed Forces, and protect yourself from ass - removing nuclear/Blackhawk/grenade/scud/smart bomb/oak-panelled-finished-basement-busters, and they kept you busy by letting you buy houses you couldn't afford which are now going into foreclosure because they are worth less than you re-financed them for so you could buy a Corvette and a flat screen, they've taken away all your pertinent rights. After you're done playing "Cowboys and Crooks" and they throw your ass in a dungeon in Albertoville, you might have time to think about the rights you should have been fighting for.
HUFF POST COMMENTERS SAY IT BEST
"I do not understand why giving money to the NRA is legal, while funding Al Qaeda is not. The end result of either group's work is the same: scores of dead and maimed Americans."
By seasalt
"Maybe we're supposed to be grateful that if we get whacked, at least it will be by some homegrown American psycho, and not some "freedom hating" terrorist. I feel better already."
By libdude
"We have a "no fly" list, but not a "no buy" list?"
By lisakaz
"Gun control isn't about making guns illegal or taking them away from "responsible" citizens. Will it always work? Probably not. Yet the TSA makes everyone go through the security version of Twister because one guy couldn't light a match."
By: TakeSake
"Sell all the guns you want, but sell each bullet for $1000 apiece."
By: jmj680
"WE are tired of prying bodies our of your "Gun Free Zones". They are usually kids, in case you haven't noticed."
By: mike101
Thanks for making my point for me mike.
And hey, if you need 100 rounds to kill a deer... maybe hunting isn't your sport.