While predicting the Colorado movie-theater massacre will result in calls for the disarming of law-abiding Americans, Ashville resident Billy Price spells out what he believes is the root cause of the shooting: An absence of the fear of God resulting from modern-day “liberal atheists” kicking God out of our schools and government.
In support of this theory, he claims mass murders like the one in Colorado were unheard of until modern times, but sadly that is not true. New, modern weapons have just made it easier to kill large groups of people.
It was May 1927 when 55-year-old Andrew Kehoe used dynamite to bomb a school in Bath, Mich., before exploding his vehicle, killing himself and others. He also killed his wife and burned their farm to the ground, having tied the animals inside their structures, killing them as well. All told, including himself, six adults and 38 school children were dead and another 58 were injured. He was facing foreclosure on his farm.
The Bath killings were the mass murder of unsuspecting Americans by one of our own and impossible to associate with the Supreme Court repeatedly ruling that state school-sponsored prayer is unconstitutional. This prohibition dates to the states’ ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1791 and does not “kick God out” of our schools and government. What it does is leave such matters to the people, their churches and their hearts, where they belong.
Since the massacre in Colorado, I have heard no calls for disarming Americans, but there have been requests from law enforcement to ban 100-round magazines for civilian use. These clips and the semi-automatic weapon that were used to murder moviegoers have no purpose but to kill.
I believe the constitutional right to bear arms should be maintained. But I also recognize that times have changed in 200 years, and we now keep a standing army. The majority of our citizens no longer need to use personal weapons, ready at a moment’s notice, to defend against the Brits. So, I’m okay with allowing the police and military to maintain the weapons of war while civilians keep hunting and hand guns for personal protection.
You cannot purchase dynamite without appropriate need and permit because our society rightly passed laws preventing it. Why should we continue to allow these newer, modern-day weapons of mass murder to be readily available?
James R. (Jim) Moore lives in Anniston.
