Here we have another American family who are just so happy they had a gun enthusiast among them. 7 of them who seem to be related in some way or other have been shoot multiple times with a .45 automatic, including the shooter Joseph Aldridge. Ah, having a gun in the house is such a boon boom to American families. Especially a nice big one with big fat bullets leaving little room for coming out alive.
When these things happen as they do about 35 times a day – which is Americans killing more Americans than terrorists have in the last 14 years combined – we always search our souls and reach too far for the common denominator. Was it for the money, were they mentally ill, was it a hate crime, drugs, were they in a gang, did they hate or love their mothers too much? Being what we are, we miss the common denominator in all of these murderers, gun enthusiasts.
Looking back in our lives and the altercations we must all have witnessed, can you think of any instance when a gun would have helped? Of course the standard gun enthusiast argument is not that they have been in a position that a gun would solve the problem but they could be someday.
They ignore THE DROP. Having a gun or not, if someone has the drop on ya, you are toast no matter what kind of arsenal you have. Kinda like a… Hmmm… A sniper. How would your gun help against a heroic sniper? Gun enthusiasm sure did help Chris Kyle and his family along hey? Which can be said for not only the 25,000 families a year who have a loved one killed by a gun, but the 300,000 wounded. And that’s not counting the pain and sorrow of all their friends.
Oh you say, the NRA, the gun lobby, the angry paranoid gun enthusiasts and the politicians who are so afraid of them make it impossible to do anything about. Live with it. Or better said, die with it. Now add to that that because of our out of control gun culture we can not longer let our kids out of our site, or go for a walk at night, or read a paper or watch the news without the daily fear of a coming barrage of gunfire from one gun enthusiast or another.
But we once through up our hands about slavery, child labor, women voting, Jim Crow, mixed marriages, gay rights, gay marriage and legalizing pot. With those last two taking just a few years to turn on it’s head. So there is hope.
A sign that it is possible is why Republicans pass legislation to make it against the law for the CDC or hospitals or doctors or police to create a national database of gun related deaths and wounds and incidents. Or to register weapons. Why do you think they do not want that information available? What are they afraid of?