Reasons Not to Know the News, Holiday Edition

What kind of person dresses up as Santa Claus, knocks on the door of house on Christmas Eve where a party with more than 20 people attending is in progress, proceeds to kill nine people in the house, and then burns the structure to the ground? The first person he shot with his semi-automatic, by the way, was the hapless 8-year old girl that answered the door. A madman, obviously. A crazed assassin. A guy with a gun who was pissed off at his ex-wife, to be more precise. This story appeared yesterday, but that was Christmas, and I swore off reading or watching any news on the safe assumption that whatever it was, it would be bad enough to ruin the holiday. I was right, of course. I cannot help but think every time I read or hear of something like this of the insane gun culture we live in.

Case in point: the nut cases at the NRA are pushing for legislation allowing students at colleges and universities to carry concealed weapons. Read about it here. (We'll stop these college shooters, by God. We'll just allow everybody to pack heat!) Oh great idea. Let's have hundreds of concealed weapons where people are getting drunk all the time and live in dormitories. The good news is bills to allow this have failed in such bastions of gun crazy citizens as Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Kentucky, among other states. But the NRA has not given up, and a new group of collegiate gun nuts has formed their own pressure group to lobby for concealed guns on campuses.

Ain't this a great country?