Our candidates are scared of the real issues

And there are many. One of them seems to be guns, but the problem is more. Guns are a symptom of some greater issues/problems. Yes the proliferation of guns is a problem, but not the core issue/problem

And you can break this down into two areas of concern.

The first is basically is a byproduct of a post I did awhile back. And that is poverty. Mayor Bloomberg was on the other evening after the movie theater incident and was saying we need gun control and statistics were quoted about how gun violence is up in the cities. And I am sure it is, but guns aren't the issue. It is our avoidance of the real issue of poverty. I talked significantly about poverty creating a huge subculture where we were losing control of large segments of our society. I stand by my previous ideas. The Mayor's comments and the statistics the news show was quoting were just proof of this problem. Everyone is under this hysteria that controlling guns will solve the problem. This frankly is like treating a fever with aspirin. The fever goes away for awhile, but until you fix the infection causing the fever the fever will continue to come back. And the fever can manifest itself in various ways. Until we wake up and realize that we need to do more for our society as a whole such as addressing the issues causing poverty and changing the mindset of people especially the young this is going to get worse and yes violence by guns will continue to be a growing problem.

The second concern falls under what happened in Colorado. And this is a much dangerous and more difficult problem. This involves individuals who seem to disengage from society. What causes a human being to get to a point to where they do something horrendous. And again guns are only a symptom. Right now they are an easy outlet for these types of people, but you cannot blame guns for the act. Look at Timothy McVeigh or the unabomber. They found the tools they needed to unfortunately carry out their deadly acts. There are many people studying the triggers that set people off, but unfortunately we don't have the answers yet. This is an issue to address and work on, however, how to study this and prevent is currently beyond being able to address it as a policy issue. You cannot legislate human behavior or controlling it. If you would like a bad example as to why (great movie with a great message though) is Clockwork Orange. Yes I am stretching to make a point, but if you are familiar with the theme you might be able to piece together my thought here.

Now is gun control a wasted topic? Not really, but the current hysteria about it is not going to solve the real problems facing our society about guns and much energy will be spent on giving society aspirin. Some controls on guns are needed, but they need to be addressed in rational moments when you can really sit down and address where we are failing in the proliferation of guns.

Currently though our group of leaders want to make headlines, not solve problems. And the two issues briefly discussed above will do more to solve guns than banning guns.

And yes there are more reasons we have gun problems. I just think the two above will go far in reducing the amount of gun violence we are fearful of nowadays.

Finally I don't own a gun, but if you start taking away the second amendment I will probably get one. We still need to be fearful of government intrusion in our lives and now some other forms of power groups that are developing and taking away our rights.