As Canada joins the world in mourning for the lives lost in Connecticut, and the US contemplates stiffer gun control, we may well ask how we got so out of step with the world that we are implementing regressive measures that will take us back decades.  Are we emulating the “gun freedom” that common sense tells us contributed to those horrific events?

The most recent New Yorker reflects on the Sandy Hook massacre, and the definite relationship between lax gun control and horrific incidents of violence, and how the gun lobby is resting non-sensical arguments about the “need to arm”: “It was hard, in the massacre’s immediate aftermath, to find a presentable advocate for the view that the No. 1 cause of gun violence is a shortage of guns. (The No. 2 cause, presumably, is a surplus of people, since people, not guns, kill people.)”

And, this piece really makes us ask if we want to follow the Canadian Rifle Asscociation and our current federal government in emulating the Americans in relaxing gun laws:

“President Obama has been uncharacteristically passionate and unusually resolute in his determination to push for stronger gun controls early in the upcoming session of the new Congress. The most obviously sensible solutions, such as registering guns like cars and licensing their owners like drivers, are universally and, alas, correctly seen as out of reach. “

And, as if he were referring to the Barbra Schlifer Clinic’s struggle to have the courts recognize the constitutional breech the new gun laws in Canada, author Hendrik Hertzberg completes his reflection with the following:

“But even if the effort to curb the killing fails, as it may, or falls short, as it surely will, it is worth making.”

Read New Yorker Article