Okay, Now The Gun Control Argument

Sandy Hook Lighthouse (Photo credit: Vicki’s Pics)

 

Okay, do not get me wrong. I am an American, but do we honestly need 300,000 legal and illegal handguns, assault riffles and 100 capacity magazines floating around our country? I am not Pro or Con 2nd amendment, but I do think that we have to look at the Amendment in the context that it was initially framed. We were a brand new nation having won our independence from England through a bloody revolution. We were afraid of government at the time. And, rightly so. But what does the 2nd amendment really give us the right to bear in terms of arms: it confers upon an individual citizen to own a musket, not a Tech 9, or an AK-47 with a 100 bullet clip. Do you really think that the Sandy Hook massacre would have been nearly as dumbfounding and deadly had the gunman had to reload his weapon? The average law enforcement personnel can reload their clip in about 2 seconds, the average gun owning citizen about 4 seconds. In 4 seconds, someone could have taken him out assuming that he had to reload.

 

What really freaked me out was the increase in gun sales, especially assault type weapons, automatic weapons, and high round clips that occurred after the Sandy Hook massacre. I saw one gun shop that had customers 5 or 6 deep at the counter. People just DO NOT need clips that hold enough rounds to take out a small army. If you cannot hit your target, moving or not, with one or two shots, maybe you shouldn’t own a gun. If you have to make mincemeat out of someone, maybe you should look into anger management classes.

 

If you look at the world numbers for death by gun shot wounds, the United States leads all of the industrialized nations by thousands of deaths per year. We have approximately 10 people dying every 8 hours due to gun violence. This does not include mass shootings. These are our kids that are dying. If 10 people on average are dying very 8 hours that means that 30 people die every day from gun violence. Multiply that by 365 days per year, and you have about 11,000 people per year. This is simply unacceptable. If you just absolutely have to kill someone that you have a beef with, stab them, beat them to death; do not stand 20 or 100 feet away and shoot them. You do not have to get yours “hands dirty” to shoot someone, it does not require any amount of courage to shoot someone, rather it is an act of absolute cowardice; you do have to get personal any other way.

 

NRA President LaPierre states that the only way to deal with a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Is there really a difference? Honestly, something has got to give. And we cannot just drop this issue just because Sandy Hook is a month past. These were 6 year olds; they will never fall in love, they will not graduate high school, they will not attend prom, they will not attend college, it is a loss of 20 potential doctors, lawyers, social workers, reformers. It is a loss of 20 members of the future generation. These kids that are dying are the future, and we have an obligation as a society to make sure they have the opportunity to become what they may, and provide a safe environment to do so.