Carnage As A Way Of Life

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way

Gimme Shelter: Rolling Stones

Guns? Whaddaya gonna do? I own several but only use one. A .22 rifle that I use to take pot shots at things with and to discourage the occasional grackle when it lingers too long at my bird feeders. I am judicious when I use it because I have been known to destroy a perfectly good bird feeder in order to dissuade the bird. I have a .30-.30 that I have only used once to shoot the leg off a robin that kept flying into our window. That was before I got the .22. Americans have a love affair with their guns. There are far more guns than there are people and that even allows for those who do not own guns. I keep them put up and unloaded because I am aware that people are a fractious bunch given to

excitable exhibitions of impulsive behavior. In other words, I am far more fearful of them being used to kill me than I am of some imagined intruder breaking in and killing me before I could run to get one and bring it to bear. As a matter of fact I have tried to imagine a scenario in which I could reach a weapon to deter him from bringing harm to me or mine. I decided that if I kept one tucked into the couch cushion I might be able to get it out and use it before the intruder used his. Now, this is not some idle maundering because I know people who do just that and they scare me. If they are that jumpy then I need to sit out in the car and blow the horn before I approach the door.

We have about 36,000 gun deaths per year here in the land of the free. It seems that almost half of them are from suicides. I've heard a lot of stuff. Probably the most frequently used is that it is not the gun that is the problem, it is the people and their depraved hearts. That is just hard to argue with. It is

almost certainly true but depraved or not if the gun had not been present it may have been a bit harder to come up with another method. One woman who is a friend of mine said that she wanted to have as much firepower as whoever was on the other side of that door. That one sure sounds good but when logic and reason is applied it has to be realized that in the case of an attack a prolonged gunfight is not likely to be the outcome. To be sure, there are reports of people using their personal weapon to fend off an attack on themselves or on others and just knowing that is an option can't be discounted.

Of course, I'm talking about this now because of the massacre in Las Vegas. Some say we shouldn't politicize this horror by bringing up gun control but I say when would be better? Right now when the blood is still fresh and the smoke is in the air. While the horror of knowing 59 people died and over

500 were wounded by ONE man is the perfect time to be discussing this. As far as politicizing it, how is acknowledging the murders and searching for solutions being political? Oh, I know. Many will see this as a conservative/liberal issue because that is the way we are being conditioned to think about everything these days. Most certainly there is a large range of thoughts as to how we can get a handle on this but it is not impossible to come to some agreement.

First we must look for the things on which we can agree. It may be distasteful to some but overall there is room for immediate relief just by sitting down and talking without the lobbyists in the room. It looks like bump stocks (who had ever even heard of that) are one issue we can agree on. Maybe on armor piercing ammunition (I can assure you the police will be in favor of regulating that). To me silencers is a no brainer. The argument is so that gun enthusiasts can protect their hearing. Try ear protection. One of the costs of suppressors is that they degrade performance and who wants that?

The only thing that can stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun. These cute little memes come to you courtesy of the National Rifle Association the purpose of which is to sell more guns for the weapons manufacturers. The gun rights advocates are not going to get what they want and the gun regulation advocates are not going to get what they want either but we have to start somewhere or just accept that mass murder is an integral part of our culture. I can't do that.

If you take the guns away from law abiding people then only criminals will have guns. Another cute

meme designed to remove logic and inject emotion into the argument. First, it will not be possible to take people's guns away from them so don't stress over that but we can begin to reduce the number of guns available over time. Australia used a buy back that had quite an impact. Once laws are on the books to prevent undesirables from obtaining guns then we can begin to reduce the numbers that the bad guys have by taking them away from them whenever they cross paths with the police. Guns are so pervasive in our country that anything we do will take years to accomplish and an unknown time for the deaths to begin to decrease. There is no panacea that is compatible with our Constitution. We have to want it to happen for it to work and there is the elephant in the room. We love our guns.

What are you willing to sacrifice in order to see gun deaths come down? To not hear of mass murders on television and see those victims whose hearts are breaking and whose lives will never be the same? What would it be worth to you to not hear of children killing children in Chicago? Do you have the heart for it or will you cling to your own unwillingness to give up your love? My Take is that I would give a lot. I would sacrifice my own irrational love for my firearms. There will be millions, yes millions, who will reject this out of hand without any thought whatsoever. Will we continue to allow them to permit our children, brothers , sisters to be killed?