Quote of the Day (Lyndon Johnson, With a Futile Attempt at Gun Control 50 Years Ago)

“Last year, two million guns were sold in the United States. Many of them were sold to hardened criminals, snipers, mental defectives, rapists, habitual drunkards and juveniles.

“There is no excuse for this. 

“There is no excuse for a holdup at gun point on a dark city street or an armed robbery in a house where children are sleeping. We are long past the point where we can allow lethal weapons to be hawked by the same mail order techniques used to market frozen steaks or baskets of fruit. We are long past the point where we can allow an enemy of society to buy and use a weapon of death and disorder—when existing state laws would not even allow the same person to drive a car, or to vote.”—President Lyndon B. Johnson, “Letter to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Urging Enactment of Gun Control Legislation,” September 15, 1967

Lyndon Johnson—who became President when predecessor John F. Kennedy was murdered with a gun, and whose last year in office was darkened by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy—would be appalled at the toll that guns have now taken on U.S. society. Last year,according to the FBI, a record 27 million guns were sold in this country—more than 10 times the number that appalled LBJ a half-century ago. We have become immune to each time a gun is employed in a different way: to kill schoolchildren, say, or a hall of concertgoers in Las Vegas.

Is this something for America to be proud of????