Guns In America AKA Let's Be Reasonable.

For context, please read a full article on Kontradictions here (a really interesting read).

I replied a few days ago and was quite happy with my reply. It was fair, I thought, and tried not to cause a big argument with every pro-gun person who had already replied. But, perhaps just due to a delay or a mistake on my part, that reply never appeared. So I replied again, a lengthier reply with a bit more fire in my belly after reading so many replies that had ruffled my feathers (metaphorically speaking, I have no such decoration, sadly).

Anyway, fed up of awaiting moderation, I decided to get things off my chest here. Apologies for the non-Christmassy-ness of it all.

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Hmmm, it seems I am either blind or my previous comment didn’t appear, which I’ll assume was an accident/mistake on my part and not anything else, haha.

I commented previously (apologies if it’s visible to anyone and I just repeat myself) that the start of this piece is based on a serious flaw in the logic. Any man, woman and child of any age can access water and anyone can be exposed to toxins, either in a natural state or chemically made, so the fact that deaths from those things outnumber guns is kind of expected. In fact, they should outnumber deaths by guns by an even greater margin.

The people rushing here to say what an impressively FACTUAL and even piece this is compared to other mainstream news outlets are missing some major points like that one, which shows a bias (and a bias is fair enough, I have no problem with that – my problem is with the responding folks trying to say that this is a completely unbiased and level-headed piece).

The replies have seen mention of everything from the almighty creator, for those who believe in him, to Hitler. Which is unsurprising. People cling on to the second amendment like it’s etched in stone and gives everyone the right to walk around their own home dressed up like Rambo. It shouldn’t, let’s be honest there. We know that prohibition didn’t work all that well but remember when that was added as an amendment? And then removed?

Then we have that response from the NRA just the other day, seeming to forget that Columbine and one of the other shooting spree locations (sorry, I forget which one and am typing this quickly) HAD security/armed guards.

If we had less water-filled areas in the world and less toxins there would, guaranteed, be less drownings and less deaths by poisoning. Less guns will never eradicate the problem but it will go some way towards helping the situation. I said LESS guns, I didn’t say NO guns.

People ask about protection from drug-fuelled maniacs? Spend the money you saved for a gun on a really strong front door, get more police back on the streets, starts dealing with the drugs issue as a health problem instead of just a criminal one (though it does, of course, tear lives apart through crime) and that’s a different way forward. Protection for livestock, time on the range, proper hunting and probably one or two others I can’t think of right now are situations in which guns and people can work well together. In all other cases, I can usually think of a number of other ways in which progress can start to be made before the guns come out.

Mental health is also an issue as is the increasing divide between the rich and the poorest of the poor. People shouldn’t be saying that the problem is JUST a gun problem and, despite how they put their foot in their mouth at the conference, I actually feel a bit sorry for the NRA because if they worked harder to compromise then their many members, surely, make the right people to advise on checks, training, etc.

And before someone plays the “who decides if/when/how I can have and use a gun and who takes away my civil rights?”. Well . . . . . . you go through checks in many areas of life – driving, travelling abroad, job applications – so if those extra checks can be tolerated in those areas then being further checked to get a gun shouldn’t be a problem. It MIGHT even be a good thing.

We’re not immune here in the UK. Nowhere in the world has eradicated death and murder by guns, we are not in the world of Minority Report. But, as flawed as the system may be, many other countries have tried their best to improve the lifespan potential of their citizens.