It was the American Society that killed Margaret Anderson

Picture credit: http://xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/news-national/news-national-20120101-US.Mount.Rainier.Shooting/

Chilling start of the New Year. A park ranger, mother of two young children, was killed in Mount Rainier National Park on New Year’s day by a deranged ex-marine. In 2009, the murder suspect had a misconduct discharge from the military for DUI and “improperly transporting privately owned weapons.” He was thought to have post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. The mother of his child sought restraining order against him because she feared for the safety of their child. Apparently, wounding four guests on a New Year’s Eve party preceded the murder of the park ranger.

The suspect kept an “arsenal of weapons” in his home – see one of them in the above picture -.

I don’t want to repeat all my concerns about the criminally lax weapon ownership laws of the US (the following link leads to one of my relevant blog entries). However, I want to call attention again to the greatest of potential dangers in this irresponsible weapon mania of an entire nation.

It is not that loaded weapons can be carried into national parks, not even that in certain states loaded weapons can be carried into bars. It is not that private people can own cache of weapons that the armed forces of a small nation would envy.

It is the irresponsibility that puts all this weapons in the reach of mad psychotics: not subtle, hidden unbalanced citizens, but strikingly mad lunatics with history, or actual signs of psychotic behavior, a.k.a. the current murder suspect.

Or, Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech murderer.

Or, Scott Dekraai, the California salon shooter.

And the list could go on.

As usual, the sensible, well-intended citizens of the nation are shocked and saddened because of this most recent tragedy. They offer their sympathy, condolences, and prayers.

But all this is in vain: in vain for the current victim and in vain for the thousands of victims that will follow her this year alone.

A whole society is to be blamed for the failure of keeping weapons out of the hands of people who cannot be trusted with respecting their fellow citizens’ right to their life – and no, I’m not talking about right to life of an unborn fetus, but the life of a born, breathing, well developed, human being capable of appreciating the gift of life, and who is also capable of feeling horror at the moment of death.

When will Congress address the issue of vigorous vigilance to withhold or withdraw gun permits from the country's dangerously unstable and frequently criminally inclined citizens?