Machine guns and madmen

Every country has madmen capable of committing heinous crimes. But only America allows the manufacture and sale of machine guns to people either already mad or capable of becoming so. The kindest, most gentle person alive can snap and go on a shooting rampage killing dozens with a legally bought machine gun. Or the same person can gradually deteriorate over time with the same result. Remember gun spokesman screen star Charleston Heston who boasted,  "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands"? Actually, it was simply squirreled away from Chuck after he became senile. But how many other aging, inevitably unstable elders pose the risk of a massacre with a machine gun. And yes, let's call it what it really is...a machine gun. It takes a machine to mow down 58 concert goers in Vegas or 26 worshipers in a tine rural Texas church. 'Assault rifle' is an insulting euphemism masking the grotesque carnage these monstrous weapons wage on our society. The president and the Congress, bought off by the gun lobby and political cynicism, are not doing the critical function of protecting society from its most defective citizens. Limit guns to the six shooter or the single shot rifle, all that's needed for hunting or self protection, and the nearly weekly gun massacre becomes extinct. A private citizen has no more right to a machine gun that he does a rocket propelled grenade or a nuclear weapon. Don't mourn for the victims of the massacre of the week. Mourn for untold thousands, including possibly you and I, who may be the next pop up figures in the American shooting gallery enabled and allowed by a society seemingly bent on self destruction.