What do they want?

They don't know.  They are grief-stricken and rightly so - some madman has killed their child.  What they want, I guess, is their child back.  What they want, I guess, is someone or something to blame for it.  What they are not is a source of reasonable information that should affect the rest of us.

But they say things like "I'm for the Second Amendment, but there has to be a way to force politicians that are cowards and in the pockets of the NRA to come to grips and make sense -- have sensible laws so that crazy people can't get guns. It can't be that hard".  But what does that mean?  How do they propose we do that?  How do you, would you, keep crazy people from getting guns, any more than we can keep them from a lot of other things.

See, they say this - they always say they are "for the second amendment" but the things they will ultimately propose, the real things they want, the things that are hidden under code words like "reasonable" or "sensible" are not consistent with the second amendment.

Of course, he also says: "And I know that the NRA, their position is going to be -- I can hear it now. They're going to say, 'Oh gee, well, if they were carrying, this never would have happened'".  No, that would be true if we were talking about many active shooter events.  But in this case, it probably would not have made any difference (but let's be honest - it would not have hurt).

That does not mean we need "sensible" gun laws.  He's right on one thing - no one could have seen this coming.  So, how would someone create a sensible, reasonable law that would have seen it coming?  How do you make sensible and reasonable law to prevent something you cannot see coming?  No matter the things they try, humans will be humans, shit will happen, and at some point it will be clear that the answer these folks want is that no one should have a firearm. That won't work either, but that is where they will want to take us - and when it fails there will be no turning back.

A much better position is that this was murder.  Murder is a crime committed by a person, not a thing, not a tool.  It is a crime that has happened for centuries.  There is, sadly, no way to guarantee that criminals will not commit crimes, that murderers will not murder, and that people who once appeared sane will not become "crazy".  As he noted, no one could see this coming.  And since we can't, we have to disarm everyone.

Perhaps people need to read this madman's screed (reviewed here) and then take a little time looking for what was behind the eyes of this killer, not what was in his hand.  Perhaps, if people want to find a cause for this kind of thing, they should look at the killer and the culture that made him, perhaps at the fact that, in his manifesto, he admitted to being "somewhat racist against whites, blacks and Latinos." Perhaps explore his expressed admiration for the Virginia Tech mass murderer, how he implies this was revenge for the Charleston shooting?  Do those concern people at all or is it easier to pretend it is the gun - does it take our mind off of the mess we have become?  Just keep making excuses for people, keep blaming things, whistling along, thinking it would all be okay if you could just repeal the second amendment, just take away the guns.