Retired Army General Joins the Anti-Gun Discussion

Retired U.S. Army General Russel Honore, best known for leading the Katrina recovery operation, spoke to USA Today following the movie shooting in his home state of Louisiana.  

"As a country we're in a state of denial because we've confused the right to bear arms with the right to carry arms all the time anywhere or anyplace you want... I've been around guns all my life, but when I was growing up they were locked in the cabinet unless you needed them for hunting."

He added that, during his time in the military, even soldiers "were required to clear their weapons and turn them in as soon as they came in from the field...Our biggest problem before Desert Storm was (soldiers) accidentally firing their weapons--and they're trained."

"We have to have a different kind of conversation in America and be prepared to speak about the politically unspeakable.  We've got a problem in this country, and at some point the politicians have to get down into the community and find some answers to this problem... We've got to rethink and re-set our thoughts about guns.  We have to focus less on ideology and more on practicality."

what eye thynk:  General Honore is saying what most of the country is saying: Enough!

We have the NRA and the politicians who fear the NRA to thank for our "anywhere or anyplace" mindset.  In order to "speak about the politically unspeakable," some of those politicians are going to have to leave their cowardice--a cowardice born simply from a desire to protect their own position in the political hierarchy--at the door.  They are going to have to acknowledge that, when our U.S. Congress is too frightened to pass the type of universal background check legislation supported by 88% of Americans, we've given too much control to Wayne LaPierre and his organization.

The NRA's constant push for more guns in more places is not making us safer.  It's just giving a license to every gun-owning nutcase in the country to strut their inadequacies in public.  It is making it impossible to tell the good guys from the bad guys.  It is making our public spaces dangerous to inhabit and impossible to enjoy.  Nobody needs an assault rifle to buy a burrito; you shouldn't need a pistol to enjoy popcorn at a movie.

We can't let the sentiment voiced in the graphic at the top of this post be the end.

When our politicians won't push back, when they view their NRA rating as more important than the voices of the people they are pledged to represent, it's time for new politicians.