Newtown Connecticut's Feigned Innocence
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Like everyone else, I believed that Newtown, Connecticut was a peaceful hamlet, whose wealthy residents were shocked to the core that the most horrifying mass shootings in American history could happen in their midst. But that was before I learned the town had its own well-kept secret. With a population of only 27,000, it has earned the dubious distinction of being the assault-rifle capital of the United States. The town maintains two legal firing ranges,several ad-hoc ranges and is home to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the second most powerful gun lobby in the country.
At first glance, Nancy Lanza, the mother of the shooter, seemed at least as isolated and unhinged as her son. She taught the mentally unbalanced child to shoot and maintained an unsecured arsenal of weapons that would have been excessive for a police station in Kabul. But here again, I misunderstood the sub-culture in which she lived. For, Newtown, Connecticut had become a mecca for assault weapons fanatics. According to an article in the New York Times:
". . . recent efforts by the police chief and other town leaders to gain some control over the shooting and the weaponry turned into a tumultuous civic fight, with traditional hunters and discreet gun owners opposed by assault weapon enthusiasts, and a modest tolerance for bearing arms competing with the staunch views of a gun industry trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which has made Newtown its home."
Even more heartrending and grotesque than the scariest Stephen King novel, is the fact that in tolerating this assault weapons culture, Newtown killed its own children. I can only hope that other such towns learn from this tragedy before it's too late.
RELATED POST: NRA has become Bunker for Lunatics
At first glance, Nancy Lanza, the mother of the shooter, seemed at least as isolated and unhinged as her son. She taught the mentally unbalanced child to shoot and maintained an unsecured arsenal of weapons that would have been excessive for a police station in Kabul. But here again, I misunderstood the sub-culture in which she lived. For, Newtown, Connecticut had become a mecca for assault weapons fanatics. According to an article in the New York Times:
". . . recent efforts by the police chief and other town leaders to gain some control over the shooting and the weaponry turned into a tumultuous civic fight, with traditional hunters and discreet gun owners opposed by assault weapon enthusiasts, and a modest tolerance for bearing arms competing with the staunch views of a gun industry trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which has made Newtown its home."
Even more heartrending and grotesque than the scariest Stephen King novel, is the fact that in tolerating this assault weapons culture, Newtown killed its own children. I can only hope that other such towns learn from this tragedy before it's too late.
RELATED POST: NRA has become Bunker for Lunatics
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