German gun owners must be licensed and pass strict safety exams to use their weapons. Police in Germany have the power to drop by gun owners’ homes to check that the firearms are locked up according to regulations. And few people are allowed to carry guns in public.“This is something that is sort of unanimously supported when it comes to political parties,” said Jan Arend, an official in Germany’s Green Party who has worked on shaping gun legislation. “I can imagine what the outrage would be in the United States.”
It speaks volumes about the tenor of our times that I can even think, "God forbid we Americans should be as sensible about public safety as the Germans," but I guess those are the times we live in.
Even so, I'm starting to get really worried for the President and his family's safety, and really, really wish he weren't making his speech outdoors on Monday. Heck, do it from the Oval Office, or Webcast it, or Skype it---it would be an historic event!---but dear God, stay indoors as often as you can for awhile. There are a lot of confused and angry white people out in flyover country whose rage is tangible and who are close to hitting an emotional boiling point; my Facebook feed is full of stuff like the picture above (which is actually pretty tame compared to some other things I've seen); they're spoiling for a fight, and I for one will let out a huge sigh of relief when (hopefully) the outdoor inauguration event has concluded and the President is sitting safely in his bulletproof Cadillac, once again en route to the White House.
On the other hand, it won't be the end of the white man's rage, so we'd all best steel ourselves for the inevitability of future Tim McVeigh Memorial Barbecues. Hope to be proved wrong, of course, but I have little doubt that we'll see at least one of them, and perhaps more, in the coming years. Either way, whatever they pay the President's Secret Service detail, they deserve triple overtime for getting him safely through this weekend.
---Baron V
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