Get Rid of those Guns !

I still struggle to come to terms with the mentality of gun culture. Shootings in the states are common yet Americans generally love the fact that their constitution protects their right to own guns. This latest shooting in Germany did come as a shock but still, not entirely unusual.

What is it about people who argue the old saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people"?

We as a species are fearful, irrational, vengeful, violent, unstable and bias in many a different way. Nothing is going to stop that. Even the most 'normal' law abiding citizen will get divorced, dumped, fired, bullied or have other issues that might even only for a few hours cause him or her to become irrational or violent. Normally the person can calm down and just get on with it but if that person, at the height of their madness reaches for a gun. Too late.

And yet we always hear about "what made them do it?" "I don't understand why he killed all these people!" "he was so normal"

I know why they do it, they are human and humans are animals plain and simple.

There have been time in my own life when if I had A gun available, I probably would have used it. But I didn't, because the passage of time allows for a cooler head to prevail.

So instead of trying to "fix" people who commit these terrible crimes, why don't we just take away the tools with which the crimes cause such damage?

The Right to Bear Arms >>

The Right to Bear Arms

Ive always thought that if you saturate society with guns, then you are asking for trouble.

Americans are no more angry or stupid than anyone else, incidents of road rage, fights and problem neighbours happen everywhere. It happens here in Auckland all the time. But the difference is, people get a chance to cool down and walk away, but in the States, it seems all to easy to reach for a gun in the heat of the moment and fire.

The quote "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is certainly true, it is the people after all that commit the crime, but even the most intelligent and educated of us still succumb to rage, one moment you are a pillar of society, the next you are a murderer.

The point is, remove the temptation. Remove the weapon from the mix and things will be surely better. In Scotland and in New Zealand, the police are not armed, except for the armed response unit (ARU) in Scotland and the Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) in New Zealand. This works well in both places where gun crime is really not an issue.

Take away rage and you are still left with stupidity. Take the recent "accidents" in the US where an 8 year old boy shot himself with an Uzi Machine Gun

"Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Connecticut, pointed the deadly weapon at a pumpkin under the eyes of an instructor and pulled the trigger as his dad reached for a camera.
But the recoil of the automatic weapon was too great and he lost control of the gun.

He was pronounced dead at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Sunday after the incident at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club"
(from Sky News )

...and just the other night a 12 year old boy was shot dead when he went trick-or-treating for Halloween in South Carolina, tragic and crazy.

In the US, many Americans hold precious their right to bear arms and in theory this is fine, but given the massive amount of shootings in the US, how can owning a gun brings anything positive to society.

Recipe for disaster:
Recipe ONE:

• One Human,
  
• add stupidity (usually comes included)
  
• add a dash of rage.
  

Result : You have a stupid angry human PLEASE AVOID.

Recipe for disaster:
Recipe TWO:

• One Human
• add stupidity (usually comes included)
• add a dash of rage.
• add Gun

Result : You have a stupid angry ARMED human, PRAY.

substitute stupidity for alcohol, drugs, unstable emotions and you will still need to pray, maybe more so.

Get rid of those guns! >>>