Newtown CT Elementary School Massacre: When Will Corporate Executives Address The Issue of Gun Control

This writer has often used this blog as a tongue-in-cheek vehicle to spotlight the interesting, and sometimes ludicrous corporate marketing messages. The event that took place in Newtown CT--a few towns from where I live--compels me to opine from a different bully pit.

The topic of gun control in this country has been dominated by the NRA. The underlying thesis advanced by the gun lobby--and the one that waves the 2nd Amendment i.e. "our right to bear arms" is ostensibly embraced by an overwhelming number of American citizens. Who can't scratch their head when being told "Guns don't kill people, its people that kill people" ??

Let's put aside the fact that 'the overwhelming number of American citizens' are lemmings who take for granted the nonsense spewed by the media, or through the media courtesy of advertising paid for by those attempting to influence "the overwhelming number of American citizens." And it works--as best evidenced by the 'overwhelming' number of lemmings that are elected to public office and find themselves in the position to legislate.

The 'framers' of the Constitution introduced the 2nd Amendment because we lived in a world that required Americans to defend themselves against  a foreign government that wanted to impose its muscle on a people that fled that country (and many others in Europe) in order to build a democratic, law abiding, free land.  Ironically, Britain--the country we wanted to arm ourselves against, has always had rigorous laws prohibiting citizens from acquiring fire arms.

But, I digress. Let's take a look at the United States in 2012. The events in Newtown CT were caused by someone using an automatic weapon. How or why any individual citizen should be allowed to purchase an 

automatic weapon, or the ammunition needed to fire such a weapon  is beyond any rational explanation.

Gun proponents claim that aside from the "rights granted by the Constitution",  they use assault rifles/automatic weapons for hunting. Hunting what?! Deer? Rabbits? Elephants? Is it actually "normal" to believe there is a sport in killing animals with machine guns??

 

Each of the mass murders that have taken place in the US recently have involved automatic and/or assault weapons.  But, politicians on both sides of the aisle have brushed those events off with "this isn't the time to tackle this issue.." Even President Obama has played that card;.most recently today when his spokesman, Jay Carney quipped "this isn't the time to debate gun control, this is the time to mourn the victims.." This is exactly the same message that came out during the Presidential election season, when in July, some nutcase took out an assault rifle in the middle of a movie theater in Aurora Colorado and killed 12 people and injured 58 others.

Since that event in Colorado, NOTHING has been presented in Congress to address the ease and otherwise limit such ease of acquiring fire arms, or specifically, assault rifles.

Yes, the shooter in Newtown CT could have used 3 different automatic handguns, instead of an assault rifle.

That's exactly right.Which tells any citizen in this country that if we don't immediately institute a system-wide crackdown on the ability to acquire a fire arm, events like today's will happen again, and again and again.  At what point do you say "enough is enough"?

My message is to my audience: corporate executives, brand influencers, and industry leaders. To date, you've kept your head in the sand on the topic of gun control. Many of you are perhaps card carrying members of the NRA. Whatever. To those others of you: Your excuses have been any and all of the following: Too political. Not in my wheelhouse. Not my problem. It's too big an issue for me to be involved in.. I don't influence..I don't want to risk any backlash from friends, business associates or more importantly, customers that might be gun lovers...and there are lots of those!

Newtown CT is a suburban town that despite a population of only 20,000, it is home to more than a few white collar executives. I say that only within the context of reaching my captive audience--which is predominantly white-collar executives--aka INFLUENCERS. Newtown is surrounded by many towns in which there are thousands of corporate executives.

We don't know why Adam Lanza, the deranged young man who walked in to that school, was intent on killing innocent people.  It doesn't matter why, and its irrelevant as to what his personal issues or mental problems were. Our society, our culture, and presumably our existing laws, enabled him to acquire the weapon. If you don't understand that logic, no need to keep reading.

Allow me to pose a few rhetorical questions that hopefully- will be spread by readers of this note.

Do you have school-aged children? Does your wife, sister, mother, daughter, son, brother or husband teach school? How about friends..do any of them fall in to the category of having a family member with the exact same profile?

If you consider yourself a thought leader within your industry or your community,  do you feel differently now about not not using your influence, for not saying anything, or not doing anything about the stupidity of our gun laws?

Do you think its time for you to step up and shout at your elected representatives to do something now, or do you simply believe that the odds of an incident such as today's hitting your inner circle are so small, that its not worth doing anything to try and spark a change to the madness of how easy it is to buy guns and bullets in this country?

Here's a solution: Let's all go out and buy guns so that we can defend ourselves against the other people that buy guns. Right.

By the way, for you Charles Bronson wannabees--the odds of a typical citizen being able to have the foresight and speed to intercede in the middle of a shooting massacre by "whipping out your Glock and pulverizing the perp" are as close to zero as you could imagine. The odds of winning the Powerball Lottery are exponentially greater.

But, if you did draw your weapon in a darkened theater or a crowded shopping mall, or a sports stadium to take that video game-esque perp down,  the odds that you would shoot an innocent bystander is about 1 in 5. The odds that you would shoot yourself by accident are about 1 in 6. The odds that your young child will inadvertently discover your gun--hidden in your closet for example--, are not much greater than 1 in 10. The odds of that discovery ultimately leading to a tragic incident are maybe not more than 1 in 20.

Maybe I'm wrong about the odds above. What odds would you be more comfortable with?