Schieffer: Keeping Violence Out of Politics
When I read that , I could not help but remember how Kennedy's message of hope and change had inspired so many that day, and how those hopes were dashed and the confidence of the nation was shaken when he died such a few short years later.
I was there. I remember, and I could not help but think of those days and the chain of violent events that followed as I reflected on the events of the last week.
I thought about how weapons like the cheap mail order rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald bought to kill Kennedy - and weapons even more powerful - are still available over the counter to people like Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner.
And it made me again wonder: Is there not some way that we can change that? Poll after poll and election after election has shown Americans want the right to own a gun, and I believe in that right.
But if we can find a way to bar minors from buying alcohol, if we can keep those with bad eyesight from driving, if the Army could find a way to keep Loughner from joining, can we not find a way to keep the mentally deranged from buying weapons?
If we do not, violence will become an ever-larger part of our politics and our national life because it cannot be otherwise simply because technology is making the weapons even deadlier and the irrational will continue to do irrational things.
We can never stop that completely.
What we can do, at the least, is to make it harder for them. We, also, have a right to safety.
