Guns Guns Guns

I went up to Champaign-Urbana for some job interviews, and twice during my travels I came across a groups of signs proclaiming the life giving properties of the gun (Burma Shave style). I know the traditional arguments -- when it becomes criminal to have guns, only criminals will have them -- guns don't kill people, people kill people -- pick your cliché. So let's get this straight right now, criminals get guns because it's legal for non-criminals to have them -- if they weren't making enough guns for everyone in the country to have at least 3, maybe it wouldn't be so easy for the bad guys to get them. Supply and demand, if there were only 12,000 handguns in the country, they would cost too much for most people to get their hands on, and they'd be a lot easier to keep track of. That's the biggest problem, nobody really knows where all these things are.

As for the Guns don't kill people, people kill people -- true, but people with guns can kill a whole lot more people, can't they. Do you think there would have been such loss of life if those kids had walked into Columbine High School armed only with half a dozen hunting knives and a baseball bat? The football game riot in Decatur would have been a slaughter house had those kids had guns (thank God they didn't). Guns have one purpose, and one purpose only -- to hurt or kill another living creature, with minimal risk to the person doing the hurting or killing (providing of course, that the intended victim is not armed as well). I've seen programs where the survivors of one of the shooting rampages have said, "If I'd only had my gun with me, I could have stopped the killing before it got started". Yeah, right -- if you'd have had you gun, you would have probably been one of the dead, instead of one of the survivors, and you probably would have killed innocent people in your quest to be a hero.

Yeah, but what about target shooting? Those are acceptable, non-harmful uses for guns. My answer, Pellet guns -- you can shoot at targets with a good CO2 Pellet gun just as easily as you can with a .22 target pistol. OK, skeet shooting doesn't work real well with pellet guns, but most crimes aren't committed with shotguns -- they don't lend themselves to secrecy very well -- and skeet shooting doesn't require a semiautomatic pump action shotgun either.

I do understand the fascination with guns, I spent a month working in a marine corp armory, getting extremely familiar with M16's and .45 semi automatics. A fine weapon is a wonderfully crafted piece of machinery, it fit's nicely in the hand, sights cleanly along the top, is well balanced, and gives you a feeling of strength. They can be nifty little toys -- little .25 semi automatic pistols with built in laser sights -- they don't even seem like lethal machines. Perhaps some heavy duty artillery, a Chinese made AK47 with a swing-away stock -- makes those M16s seem like kiddy toys in comparison. But does the average person need them? I know someone who has at least 4 guns, including the AK47 and 2 of the little laser guns -- there are only 4 people in the house. He at least keeps them stored away, and (hopefully) locked up. To him they are toys -- things to collect. Unfortunately too many people don't think like he does.

One last gun phrase -- You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands. Isn't that the way it usually works?