Have you ever wanted to kill someone? I mean been really hurt emotionally or really angry and just wished you could take them out? I hear people say it all the time, "oh, I could just kill him when he does that" "My old lady ever run around on me, I'd kill her" Of course, I hear people say they love pizza, too. I hear people love and hate a lot of things and perhaps if they'd read more in school they would have more descriptive vocabularies in order to communicate their true feelings. I enjoy pizza.
Back to the first question, though. It seems lately, a lot of people have wanted to kill someone and they did. There is a huge uproar once again in the United States over gun control. I want to state emphatically and for the record that all my life I have been a hunter and a firearms owner and I believe in the freedom of the individual to live her or his life as seen fit and have been opposed categorically to gun control Well, I've changed my mind.
Let's look at some of the arguments that the gun control opponents throw out there. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. If these crazies really want to kill someone, if they don't find a gun, they'll just find another way. What about cars? Cars kill people, should we take away people's right to drive?
OK, but if I want to kill someone and I have to use a knife or a blunt instrument, I might get a couple of victims, but everyone else is either going to run away or hide. I can't possibly chase down, oh say 27 people. I can stand in one place and shoot that many though. That kind of takes care of the first two arguments, I think. Also, if I am armed with something less than a firearm if might be easier for someone to throw a text book at me, and certainly for the police to stop me a lot more easily if I don't off myself. If someone is under the influence, or has certain proven medical conditions that require specific medications, in most regions they do have their right to drive taken away. Society can't monitor everyone all the time, and I honestly haven't heard of any psychopaths trying to kill groups of nursing students or high school kids by driving into them with a car. They go get automatic weapons instead. It has to stop. Some readers may feel that I'm harping on too much about the US and that here in Canada it's nowhere near that bad. Update your statistics, sports fans, the prevalence of gun violence has actually gone down in most parts of the US, it's on the rise all over Canada.
Before I move on, I have the last great argument of the gun supporters. Of course, the average Joe Hunter/Teabagger/Minuteman doesn't have to lobby the government himself with this, the NRA pays lobbyists and darn good lobbyists to do that work for them. I wonder who the biggest sponsors of the NRA might be, gun makers maybe? But we all know what that argument is right? Their Constitutional right to bear arms. The 2nd Amendment. Well, here's exactly what it reads as:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"
I have bad news for those guys hiding out in the forests of Vermont and mountains of Montana with their camoflage undies and double lighting bolt flags--that is gun control. If your militia is well regulated, that militia would do more to keep the guns out of crazy people's hands than the police are doing. "Necessary for the security of a free state"--that's what it says. I wonder how free people feel going shopping in Oregon this week or wanting to go to school in Connecticut. Hey, all you gun owners--great job protecting the security of the free state. We're all proud of you guys.
Hey, maybe I'm too late, there are enough guns out there to stock several armies. Gun control in and of itself might be a pipe dream because the other argument is that the bad guys and the crazies will always find a way to get a gun. So, since we can't possibly stop them, apparently the argument is that we shouldn't even try because it will inconvenience the rest of us. There are 18 dead children and 9 dead adults in Connecticut this week. I don't know how many mourners and grieving families that equates to, but I could handle a little inconvenience if it had stopped one guy, and I like buying guns. Maybe we can't stop these kinds of people, but at least, let's try to slow them down a little, give the good guys a chance. In the meantime, all you guys and gals out there defending the second amendment in America, like I said, keep up the good work.
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