As the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting tragedy dissipates, I am having to wade through a blizzard of postings on Facebook by people on my friends list about the aftermath.
Some of the postings are supportive of gun control, with arguments and supporting documents and cites. Some are against gun control, with arguments and supporting documents and cites. I agree with some of the material, I disagree with some of it. The people in question are expressing their viewpoints, which is as it should be.
However, a distressingly large percentage of the postings fall into neither of the above categories. They consist of a slogan poster culled from somewhere else on the internet, accompanied by a short message that translated, equates to "Yeah!" or "Right On".
Some of the slogans fall into the category of what I term "Love or Leave", binary and pugnacious exhortations.
What unites this large percentage of postings is:
- No attempt to construct any sort of argument
- No attempt to engage anybody else in discussion or debate about root causes, possible solutions and ideal solutions

I have attempted to engage some of the posters, but, based on the level of non-responses to date, I am coming around to the conclusion that the postings represent venting.
There is not going to be any useful evolution of public policy in the USA after Sandy Hook without a good deal of informed debate and discussion. History shows us that knee-jerk actions tend to result in unintended (and often dangerous) consequences. No matter which side you are on, the persistence of public and semi-public multiple shooting incidents is unacceptable (or ought to be unacceptable), so solutions need to be discussed, debated and implemented.
Posting slogans is no substitute for the debate that we should be having.