Flaylo
Handsome Devil
David M. Abromowitz: If You Want to Talk Defense, Defend Us from Weapons of Mass Assault Right Here at Home
I stand by this.
In no time, Congressmen and candidates who like to talk tough on defense will let the Aurora slaughter slide into the background, and turn back to pushing Americans to pump up military spending.
While a gunman was preparing to turn an assault weapon on moviegoers here at home, candidate Mitt Romney was reportedly vowing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more on armed forces overseas, telling a group of veterans, "I will not cut the military budget. I will instead expand our essential weapons programs and our active-duty personnel."
But if politicians really want to defend American families from threats, they must first do something about the weapons of mass destruction here at home.
The Aurora movie massacre will produce any number of somber statements of regret for the tragedy, and shock and amazement about a madman doing the inconceivable. But surely some variation on this will happen again, when easily available semi-automatic weapons enable the next in a long series of mass murderers to mow down still more of us. Politicians who fail to offer a way to keep rapid-fire killing machines out of the hands of the next gunman bent of shooting up a school or a mall or a church are grossly negligent in their first duty, to keep our citizens safe.
I stand by this.