Firearms.
I saw the video the gunman sent to NBC.Risking sounding insensitive:
Can we ever prevent such things from happening?
I believe not.
Massacres like this don't happen in Singapore because it is difficult for people to get guns. People with weird states of mind do exist... Medics who are/were on duty every month at AH and are/were on standby for Tekong during enlistment period will know what I mean. We have mad husbands stabbing their wives (and vice versa) all the time. I believe you should still remember the one who chopped his girlfriend into pieces and dumped her into Kallang River and the one who hired a group of kids to murder his wife. How can you guarantee that these people won't go onto a killing spree if they have the means to?
Every society will have a group of people like that without fail. It is impossible to single out every such individual, and there is no guarantee that the individual will respond positively to society's intervention.
The only way to prevent such incidents from happening again is to adopt strict firearms control and make access to firearms difficult. Limit available weapons to steak knives, hammers and wood saws will make a massacre almost impossible, and the result will be a society which the most remembered murder case is the one in 1986 in which a guy killed his wife and made her into curry.
But with the Second Amendment of the Constitution and strong lobby groups like the National Rifle Association, what can America do?!
Yeah, nothing can be taken for granted. We should really thank our laws which throws you to jail for the possession of spent rifle catridges and hangs you if you fire a gun. At least, I don't have to worry about being robbed at gunpoint, and I can choose any way I want to go to the airport to meet my dad tomorrow night. Waiting for the light rail alone with a laptop in my bag at 9:00pm in downtown Baltimore is just, unthinkable...
Labels: Policy and Politics
