Let’s face it, arguing about gun rights in the United States of America is like arguing with a three year old over the existence of Santa Claus. You won’t win, and you won’t be able to persuade the toddler in your direction. Its best to just let the kids believe in their right to have a Santa Claus.
Yet people still argue over the right to bear arms. You’re either for it, or against it. I, however, am stuck in the middle. As an adult who tends to think ideas through, I don’t see anything wrong with gun ownership. As long as the gun owner is responsible and knows how to handle the gun in a safe manner. Therein lies the problem. People who actually think they’re being safe with their weapon aren’t really being as safe as they could be. If they were there wouldn’t be accidental shootings, and their children wouldn’t have access to a weapon just lying around the house. There’s no winning an argument over gun rights. Every aspect of gun ownership is ‘gun wrong’ in this day and age.
To say that taking away guns (and no one is suggesting that….as far as I can tell) is like taking away drugs. Right here…right now…I’m going to say that is the stupidest point in any argument that I’ve ever heard. Look at the picture below that I found on the internet this morning:
Selling guns in stores isn’t the problem. Neither is meth. But, for the sake of the argument, we say that this picture is a valid point (which it isn’t), let’s rewind time and all the massacres that have happened in the past year, if a guy walked into a college, or a church, or a school with bags full of meth and threw said bags of meth on his victims, how many of those people do you think would be dead right now? Anybody? Anyone? I’ll tell you how many, none. They’d be alive right now to tell you that after their tweak…they woke up from the floor and realized some guy just pelted them with meth and go about their lives. It just so happened that guns vs meth (or ANY drug, for that matter) is like comparing speed boats to electrical fences. It doesn’t make sense.
Another picture I found on the internet this morning:
Walk up to someone you don’t know and tell them they have a choice. Either you’re going to shoot them, or you’re going to spark up a bong and they have to get high with you. That’s the only two choices they have and they have to pick one. Which one do you think they’re going to choose? I’m going out on a limb here and guess they’ll take the bong. Drugs being illegal is nothing like making guns illegal since drugs haven’t killed anyone en masse. Sure, drug overdoses have killed a lot of people….but it was THEIR choice to end their lives. Not the decision of some whacko stranger with a firearm. Trayvon Martin would still be alive today if Zimmerman would have shoved a healthy bud of illegal Hawaiian Kush down his throat.
Someone needs to be unpopular here and make a decision. The same unpopular decision that made smokers of legal cigarettes stand outside in the rain to smoke because it’s illegal to smoke in buildings. Or the same unpopular decision that made us all wear seat belts when we all used to just either sit on the straps or shove them deep into the seats because we didn’t even know how to work them. Yet…now we smoke outside, and we wear seatbelts because it’s the norm. There was a time when it wasn’t. There needs to be a decision made, and I’m not suggesting it’s up to our elected government officials…but by the people who are so fed up with hearing about mass shootings every single day. A decision by we, the people, who see that gun violence is becoming way too prominent and that eventually “it won’t ever happen to us” will become “I know someone who died of gun violence” to “I’ve been shot twice now. Let me show you the scars.” If you don’t think that gun violence, or death caused by a gun, isn’t going to come to a town near you….then you’re as delusional as thinking buying a gun can be equal to buying drugs.
I have an idea! And if I ever become President, this is so going to be the law of the land. (hey, if Trump thinks HE can be president, then I can dream too.) This is the day of technology. Why doesn’t someone come up with a safer gun? Something along the lines of — you can only discharge six bullets before the gun locks. Then you have to stop shooting and enter in your 4-digit code before you’re able to shoot six more times? Just like you have to unlock your phone before you can use it. And, with this new gun with it’s smart access to the trigger, we have new bullets. That way the old bullets that are available now won’t be able to be used in this spanky new upgraded Gun 2.0. Because, if you think about it, we all used to have flip phones. Then the iPhone came out. And then Samsung, Android, Nokia, et al….how many flip phones are in use right now? I think I know ONE person with a flip phone. I kid them every time I see them use it. But the flip phones used to be the normal. Now…not so much. It’ll be the same thing with the new Gun 2.0. There will be people with older guns, with older bullets, but they’ll eventually wane into the shadows. This way, when some uses the argument, “I need a gun to protect myself when someone breaks into my house,”…they’ll have access to six bullets before their gun locks. I mean…come ON…how many bullets is it going to take to shoot someone who broke into your house?? If you miss with the first bullet, or the second, you still have four before you hear the click of the lock. Hit the guy with one bullet and I can pretty much guess he’ll go down long enough for you to call the police.
The other argument I hear is:
I haven’t heard of anyone driving their car (on purpose) into a church or a college with the intent to kill many people. Maybe in the Mid-East…sure. But not in the U.S.A. Manic depressives or those we find have been mentally ill because of their Facebook posts just don’t plow into people with their vehicle. What is so wrong about insisting gun ownership comes with responsibility? Why shouldn’t we go to classes to learn how to properly handle the gun (like we do our vehicles) or register the gun (like we do our vehicles) or insure the guns (like we do our vehicles…and our lives, by the way)? Right now, any dickhead on a suicide mission can go out and purchase a weapon with little to no consequence. We, the people, should make his (or her) actions consequential. Just like we do with vehicles. Okay, okay, I see that some of you are going to tell me that it will make the insurance fat cats richer. I totally agree. But I believe it will save lives. MORE lives than it would if the whackos didn’t have to register or insure their weapons.
And that’s why I say that someone needs to make an unpopular decision before our friends, our neighbors, our loved ones become a number in a statistic. I don’t want any of you to be a victim. I’m sure you don’t want to be one either. That’s why I’m on the side of “something needs to be done about all this gun violence.” It will just continue if we all sit around and argue about it. Nothing gets done by arguing. We need action. Before it’s too late. In my opinion, it’s already too late when children are corpses because of guns.
It’ll be a long time before we have Star Wars weapons or Star Trek phasers. Of course, no one can ever hit their targets with those things. So I’m guessing those are out of the question right now. Why can’t we just go back to using swords?? I’d be okay with that option over guns.
Updated: While I was typing this all out, a news story came out about an 8 year old being shot by an 11 year old neighbor with his Dad’s shotgun. The 11 year old is being charged with the murder (yes…the 8 year old girl died). Why isn’t the father charged with the murder??? See? If there was some responsibility, registering, trigger locks, and insurance on these damned things…then the father would have been more cautious where he leaves his shotgun. This is what we need to start addressing!
Tags: drugs, gun rights, gun violence, illegal, legal, Life in General, mass shootings, Talking Out Loud, WTF?
