Guns For Everyone

Obsessed with twelve year-old Jodie Foster portrayal of the child prostitute John Hinkley saw TAXI DRIVER fifteen times in a row. He stalked the actress to Yale and wrote her many letters including this one from 1981. "Over the past seven months I've left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself.... The reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you. On Monday, March 30, 1981 John Hinkley attacked newly-inaugerated President Reagan after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Reagan was seriously wounded and his Press Secretary James Brady was severely paralyzed by the fuissilade meant to reward the shooter with a fairy tale ending to his erotomania. Reagan was surrounded by Secret Service and Washington Police. Each was armed to protect the President. They failed in their task and the only person to shot a gun that day was John Hinkley, who was later declared 'not guilty' on grounds of insanity. In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre the USA has seen growing opposition to sales of assault rifles and the resistance of the NRA to restrict access to such weapons. Their spokesman Wayne la Pierre has proposed arming janitors and teachers in order to prevent mayhem in our schools, since the creation of a no-gun zone around our schools has left an opening for a mass murderer. “With all the foreign aid the United State does…can’t we afford to put a police officer in every single school?” An excellent idea, except it might be cheaper to ban assault weapons or enforce existent background checks on gun buyers. The NRA doesn't see it that way. To their thinking guns save lives, even though four times more suicides by guns and accidental shootings occured than criminals wounded or killed in the act of a crime. No way do I think of Wayne Lapierre as innocent. But inane. You know it.