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Early this morning, the phone chirped out an alert that there was an active shooter situation in downtown Raleigh and that Ligon Middle School had been placed under a code yellow lockdown with the scene of the shooting literally being a couple of blocks away.

In fact, I know that area very well as that is where I usually make a right turn to take the back way to the fields where Katie’s lacrosse team trains every afternoon (her coach works at Ligon during the day).

With the heavy rains early this morning likely making the training grounds unplayable, I knew Katie was hoping for training to be cancelled but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t wanting that outcome because of another senseless slinging of bullets nearby.

As I’m digesting that bit of news and wondering how friends from Katie’s former dance studio in Fuquay-Varina who work at that school were dealing with this added stress to their day and coming up with my hot take on the hoary old subject of guns and crims who shouldn’t have them…yep, you guessed it…another alert comes through about a school shooting.

Are you flipping kidding me?!?

Not even a hour or two later and this time it was one of our sister capital cities along I-40…Nashville, Tennessee.

This time it was a female shooter which is rather rare but the same old story played out again: shooter goes into a school with a gun and kills three adults and three children (at least at the time of this writing) before being killed themselves by police.

I’ve no doubt that the bodies haven’t even had a chance to be covered before the “thoughts and prayers” crowd start storming the airwaves offering their condolences for the victims and the families who now have the Easter season to remember and not in a good way.

But it comes to this…where in the hell with the “thoughts and prayers” squad be when it comes time to finally stop screwing around and treating this orgy of gun violence wracking this country as the mental health crisis and existential threat to our national safety and security that it is?

When will enough bodies on the ground and blood on their hands for being so willing to take the gun lobby’s money to look the other way in their pursuit of political power finally be enough?

“Yueh! Yueh! Yueh!” goes the refrain. “A million deaths were not enough for Yueh!”

“A Child’s History of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan (From Frank Herbert’s “Dune”)

I’m beginning to wonder if the blood of a million deaths on the hands of the politicians and others who should be indicted as co-conspirators with the crims actually pulling the trigger will truly ever be enough?

I’m sure God and Jesus knows their “thoughts and prayers” sure as hell aren’t.

So I’d love for the powers-that-be to finally answer the question: when will enough finally be enough?

I’m not holding my breath that the ammo-sexuals in the North Carolina General Assembly will get the message anytime soon.

Sitting in front of them is Governor Cooper’s veto of Senate Bill 41 (“Guarantee 2nd Amend Freedom and Protections“) which was vetoed just this past *FRIDAY*.

In a nutshell, this bill proposes a statewide firearm storage awareness initiative to educate the public on the safe storage of firearms and give out free gun locks.

Wonderful.

I’m sure the responsible gun owners who were never the problem in the first place and already store their firearms safely will be more than happy to take the General Assembly’s offer of gun locks and education on the subject.

I doubt the crims will bother.

The not so wonderful downside of Senate Bill 41 is almost a complete gutting of the system that required background checks for both licenced dealers *AND* private sales and requiring the purchaser of the gun to apply to the sheriff of their county for a permit to purchase and own the weapon.

In other words, it eliminated the private sale loophole I could drive CVN-68 (USS Nimitz) through that provided another mechanism for trying to keep weapons out of the hands of people who really should not possess them by an agency who may well know this individual’s criminal record and mental proclivities better than the state or federal authorities.

Once the sheriff is no longer the point of contact to also conduct a background check which may contain information not be available to the federal authorities, gun sales in this state will essentially rely on the federal background check which is only done by legitimate and licenced gun dealers.

Assuming the background check system is actually working that day.

And lest we forget, there’s that gun show loophole that has been used many times for people to evade the background check and get the guns the same day.

At that point, what in the hell do you think you’re going to accomplish other than the NRA’s wet dream of getting *MORE* guns into the hands of the American public? Whilst the NRA’s gun safety classes are the best in the world by far, it is overshadowed by their consistent resistance to even common sense regulation and restriction of gun ownership in favour of continuing to make loads of money off the misery of Americans being gunned down practically everywhere we care to look.

It seems to me that isn’t exactly making this country a safer place to live!

There’s other little nuggets in the bill for the Sunday Rambo wannabees amongst us allowing people to attend church services on school property armed to the teeth and ready to start blasting away. Assuming the priest survives the assault, at least last rites will be conveniently available to the victims.

So can we at least agree on some basic principles?

• There is no logical reason why the average civilian needs to use, much less own, an assault rifle and it’s well past time they are taken out of civilian hands. Those weapons are designed for overwhelming force in close quarters combat against a well-armed enemy. Police and military personnel may well have need of them in specific situations but even then their use should be restricted to very specific scenarios requiring overwhelming lethal force.
• Felons convicted of violent crimes should never be allowed to purchase, possess, or use a firearm again in their lifetime. I realise they’ll just buy one out of the back of a fellow felon’s vehicle or steal the weapon but at least there’s another charge available to keep them in jail when they choose to re-offend.
• People who are mentally ill or have a history of violence should not be allowed to possess weapons and a mechanism needs to be in place so that upon valid application and execution of a court order, the weapons may be removed from their possession until such time as they can satisfy the court they pose no further danger to themselves or the community.
• Mandatory federal, state, and local background checks on the purchaser before a gun may be purchased, sold, or traded regardless of where the transaction occurs (i.e. in a gun shoppe, at a gun show, or a private sale) and a secure documentation trail that shows these checks were properly performed. If the dealer and purchaser do not have the proper paperwork showing compliance with this rule, they risk being charged with felony selling and unlawful possession of a firearm. No exceptions. Ever.
• A mandatory three-day waiting period between the time of purchase and time of delivery. If the background checks haven’t been completed in that time-frame, delivery of the gun is delayed until they are and the background checks and paperwork is in order.
• Permits for concealed carry should only be issued after completing the requisite gun safety training and passing extensive background checks. Concealed carry permits must not be arbitrarily refused without proper grounds (i.e. criminal record, history of violence or mental illness, etc.).
• If your weapon is used in a commission of a crime and you are found to have been negligent in storing and maintaining control of access to the weapon/ammunition, you will also be charged with and answer charges in the prisoner’s dock for felony accessory after the fact.
  

I’m under no illusions that these ideas will stop all potential violence committed with guns.

But you cannot hope to convince me that virtually eliminating any restrictions on the purchase and ownership of guns will do anything but increase violence committed with guns.

I know full well the 2nd Amendment will likely never be interpreted again as it was originally drafted which was as a way of ensuring that the colonies and later states could raise a readily armed militia on short-notice for threats from foreign invasions or the occasional wars with the Native Americans.

It might shock some of the more zealous 2nd Amendment fans that pretty much every colony had a registry knowing who possessed the gun(s), their identity and location, and what their arsenal contained so that the colonial/state authorities knew what they had to work with in the event of a crisis.

It was never meant to be a free-for-all where people would strap on as many guns and ammo belts as they could so that Rambo would look upon them with fear.

That genie isn’t ever going back into the bottle.

But shouldn’t we at the very least take reasonable steps to try to keep guns out of the hands of people who ought not to have them?

Polls have consistently shown that a strong majority of responsible gun owners as well as the general population support common-sense gun regulation.

The only ones that don’t are the crims who won’t obey the law, the politicians paid massive bribes in the form of campaign donations and bungs after they’re elected to look the other way, and those delusional sorts who think that if they have an arsenal capable of mounting a successful assault on the average third-world country that the “tyrannical government” that exists only in their addled mind won’t deprive them of their dubious gun rights.

It’s long past the time these people get an effective veto against common sense legislation that might actually have a chance to save lives.

Senate Bill 41 isn’t part of that solution but should the General Assembly override Governor Cooper’s veto against the will of the majority in this state who consistently think common-sense gun policies are a good idea, they will be exacerbating the problem to a degree rarely seen in modern times.

And it rather begs the question…how many senseless and needless deaths will be required to satisfy the thirst for political power and financial gain by the politicians who are being paid massive sums of money to not only look the other way but actively prevent common sense reform?