2/15/2022 blog

On a news article and a movie

These are the first two paragraphs from a cover story in The Washington Post today:

When the families of nine of the victims of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School began their lawsuit against the gunmaker of Bushmaster AR-15 style rifle, they were driven by the goal of sparing other families the pain that had upended their lives.

On Tuesday, the victims’ families marked a victory in their effort with the announcement of a $73 million settlement with Remington Arms, which manufactures the Bushmaster. The settlement, which comes after a protracted court battle, marks the first instance in the United States of a gun manufacturer facing liability for a mass shooting.”

My own view about guns is civilians should be allowed to own them as pistols for self-defense or rifles for legal hunting, but only the military or SWAT teams should have rapid-fire guns. Admittedly, I don’t understand gun technology well enough to know what qualifies as “rapid fire.” Anyway, while Sandy Hook was a tragedy, it seems to me the families of the slain children went after the money. To me, gun sellers are only slightly more responsible for deaths than car and truck sellers. Vehicles cause a lot of deaths too.

On another matter…

Re-watched the start of a comedic movie I liked a few years back called Made of Honor. It stars two charismatic actors who have a male-female friendship for several years after college until they decide they are in love and marry. But the start disturbed me this time because the male character jumps into bed with the woman against her will while they first meet in college. The humor in the film is also sometimes crude.

As an English literature teacher, I had a student who wrote that Romeo in Romeo and Juliet was a stalker. It had never occurred to me before, but Juliet does at first resist his pursuit.