Too many Americans these days, including those with the power to change things, lack being able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and just do not care…really care. You can say you care but words are cheap and if you do nothing of substance to cure and solve problems then you are part of the problem. However, you will deny you are part of the problem and place the blame elsewhere and thus continue to live in denial. If U.S. citizens did care, the reality is, the laws to protect the citizenry would not have deteriorated to such a degree that people, generally, just do not feel safe anymore.
At one time, not too many decades ago, in most parts of the U.S. you could actually leave your windows and doors unlocked day and night and still feel safe. If things have not deteriorated then why not leave your doors and windows unlocked today?
Concerning the lack of empathy of the American public, for example, you are in a mall or some public place and you hear gunshots. Then you realize the shooter has a bead on you as you, or a loved one, are looking down the barrel of an assault weapon, or a shotgun, or a handgun. Or you, or a loved one, are being threatened with a knife, or a lead pipe, or a baseball bat or you, or a loved one, are being violently threatened by anyone with anything that could be used as a deadly weapon. At that very moment, odds are, you just know you cannot escape some sort of injury. So, at that very moment of an impending life or death crisis, what do you wish? Odds are, at that very moment, many people wish that they, or a loved one, had some sort of lethal protection to enable them to fight back. Or if you, or a loved one, are weak and vulnerable you wish someone would heroically intervene and save you or your loved one.
Everyone loves news stories where someone fights off an attacker and wins the battle. This does not happen much but when it does the victim, generally, used some sort of weapon to fight fire with fire, so to speak, and most everyone cheers good winning over evil and swears they would have done the same thing if they had been in that situation.
Most everyone hates to hear about the innocent man or woman that was gunned down without mercy who in their spare time had been a little league coach, or was devoted to their family and now the family has no provider, or the person was just full of life, happy and trusting, with a very promising future but was gunned down senselessly.
Law enforcement says you have two choices to curb gun violence. Either accept gun violence in America as a way of life or take away all the guns. We already know that in our lifetime all the guns in America cannot or will not be eliminated. So, in the meantime, until there are real solutions to gun control and gun violence what choices do we have? Law enforcement neglects to ever talk about the third choice which is regulate and rigorously qualify all those who want to arm themselves with concealed weapons in the workplace and on the streets.
If employees and citizens were allowed to carry concealed weapons, of course, there would be ugly and horrific unintended consequences as there are today when someone pulls off a massacre of unarmed innocent men, women and children. Critics charge that armed employees and citizens could possibly stop some of the carnage from getting out of hand that takes place in bloody massacres. Those who want to do harm to others may sometimes even have second thoughts on attempting a massacre of innocent people if they thought they themselves would be cut down and killed before they had a chance to kill large numbers of innocent people.
How many massacres of innocent men, women and children does it take for America to wake up the President, Congress and the citizenry? The current system in place does not inhibit killers from attempting a massacre of unarmed innocent people so at least try allowing large numbers of people to carry concealed weapons if they pass all the rigorous tests that would be required.
Politicians ask for more mental health services and more rigorous background checks but this will never stop the massacres of large numbers of innocent people in America so at least allow the citizenry to arm themselves and when a massacre does start to take place maybe, just maybe, the carnage will not involve large numbers of people and maybe, just maybe, the killer will get killed by alert armed citizens before the killer has had a chance to kill innocent men, women and children.
Too often those in charge and those in power in America are insulated from being victimized so they never feel the pressure to really do something to solve problems so the citizenry feels helpless. If left up to the citizenry to mete out justice and punishment gangs would not take over neighborhoods, gangs would not even exist, and serial killers, pedophiles, rapists, muggers and people with violent tendencies, all of whom prey on the helpless, the weak and those vulnerable, would think twice before committing crimes against those that are helpless. And if someone legitimately does not know right from wrong then they will be taken off the streets and institutionalized.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: EXTRAPOLATED INNOVATIVE IDEAS FROM THE FOLLOWING REPORTS: HOMICIDE TRENDS IN THE U.S. 1980-2008 and FBI: CRIME IN THE U.S. 2011 and BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS 1993-2011