National Rifle Association members have to be idiots to recommend the U.S. legislate an armed-guard protection program for each elementary school to prevent another massacre like that in Connecticut on Dec. 14.
What a perverted, loony-bin message to school kids everywhere - universal gun-presence to keep them safe, and an atrocious example from educationists and parents who would support that measure.
Instead, why doesn't America just scrap its outdated constitutional clause on "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" as columnist Jim Taylor urges in his Okanagan Sunday column Dec. 23.
Couple that with my letter proposal in the Dec. 22 Okanagan Saturday that gun-worshipping U.S. and all nations shoot down such trigger-happy insanity anywhere and everywhere by banning the manufacture of handguns and rifles, except for police,
protective agency and military use.
In his superb column, "An open letter to all Americans," Taylor quotes another writer who blames the Yanks themselves for caving in to gun worshippers: "For the sake of avoiding conflict, you didn't confront neighbours, gun-shop owners and politicians who grovel at the altar of the National Rifle Association."
That same writer labels the 4.3-million-member NRA - barely one per cent of America's adult population - as "the most dangerous organization in your country. But you let them lead your country's legislators around by the noses. Or perhaps by their wallets - $17 million in political payoffs last year alone."
Should anyone wonder why the U.S. has had so many multiple murders since 1966, as enumerated by Taylor - dopey Americans so juvenile with their firepower toys.
Taylor's insightful column, coincidentally, harmonized brilliantly with the front-page "Wise Words" from Albert Einstein in the same edition: "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Surely, it's time to act boldly on Taylor's proposal for America to scrap its constitutional right-to-bear-arms clause and my own that all nations ban the sale of handguns and rifles, except for police, protective agency and military use - the latter suggestion from a long-ago Detroit newspaper police and court reporter who reported all too much gunfire insanity.
Let's all pen-gun this NRA armed school-guard proposal to burial.
Wally Dennison,
Kelowna