Rant about guns

[piplover]

If you are easily offended, please don't read this. Nough said.



This is a rant about firearms. About the several posts I've seen today advocating stronger gun control. I can understand people are upset. A terrible, horrible thing happened, and people are hurting tonight. But to be blunt - stronger gun control isn't the answer.
Every rant I saw tonight was pretty much of the vein that this horrible thing would probably not have happened if there were stronger gun control laws. I say, BULLSHIT. If the fucker was that crazy and determined to hurt people, he would have found another way, such as a pipe bomb or a crossbow. Those things are equally deadly, and yet a hell of a lot easier to get. Why aren't people ranting about the need for crossbow regulations?
I was raised with guns. Some of my earliest memories are of going shooting with my dad. I think I was five when he let me shoot his bb gun. My sister and brother were equally young when they first got to shoot. Does that make us crazy fuckers who want to go out and blow people up? How about this: instead of advocating for harsher gun control, lobby for gun awareness. I can tell you for certain that when my dad took a watermelon and blew it up with one shot, it drove home to me just how deadly a gun can be. Not one of us kids had any urge to ever touch those weapons in the house, because we were all very aware of the danger they presented. And I'm talking about my four year old brother telling a friend that you don't touch the stuff in daddy's closet because it's dangerous. How many four years old know not to touch a hot stove? How many know not to run with scissors? If a person wants to have a gun, I say let them. But I also say make the person go through a gun safety class. If the person wants to have a weapon, make it so they know about that weapon and all it entails. Hell, do we blame the car when a person kills someone while driving drunk? People have to go through school in order to get a driver's license, I think guns should be the same.
Fifty years ago it was common for five and ten year olds to know how to use a rifle, to respect it, and to not kill themselves with it. They used it as a tool, because that's what it is. A tool. Its not evil, its not going to get a mind of its own and start going off at odd hours of the day. It takes a person, a sick, crazy fucking person, to use a weapon to harm.
As a soldier you learn to respect your rifle as the tool it is. But I learned that lesson long before I ever joined the military.
So for anyone out there who wants to rant about firearms and gun safety, please think about what you are saying. By making a gun a secret, all you're doing is making kids curious. If you take the mystery away, and just lay out the facts, then there's nothing there for the kids to want to explore for themselves. Teach children about guns. Teach them the dangers, make them aware of the consequences. But for goodness sake, don't blame an inanimate object for someone's fucked up actions. Shooting guns is fun, its a sport, and its a right in this country. Make people aware, because the biggest danger to anyone is ignorance.
End of Rant.

Comments

[odannygirl7.livejournal.com]

Amen.

I think you're exactly right. Guns should be a privilege, not a right. Just like a car. Prove you can responcibly handle one and there's no problem.

You know what they say... "Guns don't kill people, People kill people."

[piplover.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Gun control shouldn't be about prevent, prevent, prevent. It should be about inform, inform, inform. Sigh.

[dreamflower]

I think you have hit on one thing for certain: people should have to learn about and have to be licensed in the same way as the driver of a car. And you are right, too, about children in the past learning respect for weapons. Actually, this would, in some places mean *more* regulation, while in other places it would mean less--that's a good deal of the problem, inconsistency. I am not quite sure how easy it would be to implement. Someone would need to come up with a program that would not only train people to use and respect guns properly, but to weed out those who are inherently unstable and shouldn't be trusted with one. (Just like people with certain ailments are not allowed to drive a car.)

What's different today is not simply the availability of guns--they are certainly more regulated than they were fifty years ago--but the way some people think of them as toys. All the violent movies and video games have made some people think of a real gun as just one more way to play a "game"--only one with higher stakes and more thrill.

True, a pipe bomb or a crossbow could do the same. And we've seen that some people *do* opt for bombs to carry out their strange and warped purposes; but a gun is handier than a pipe bomb, and makes a lot of noise, unlike a crossbow, which is silent and not as scary to most people.

I don't know what the real answer is, but simply calling for bans on guns is not going to solve the problem.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

It just frustrates me how people's first reaction after something like this is to immediately lock down on guns, and that doesn't solve the problem. You are completely right about the video games. Young people aren't taught about guns as tools or how dangerous they are, and that's scary. I don't know what the answer is, either, but I think informing people is a big part of it.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Most of the gun control kind of laws which I support are actually fairly close to what you're advocating -- that owning a gun is accompanied by a responsibility to understand just what a gun can do, and to take the training in safety. (And, as you point out, demonstrate the danger to your kids.) I like rifle shooting myself, and I've no objection at all to weapons which are permitted and carried openly.

What I'm seeing promoted, however, is the idea that if the kids at VTech had been carrying concealed weapons themselves, they would have been able to shoot back, and that makes no sense to me. If a bunch of people had pulled out guns in that situation it would have become a paranoid free for all. Too many people have their ideas about guns from movies where the good guy can blast away without ever being hurt -- where the bad guys are stopped with a single hit, though that isn't necessarily true -- and where the police telepathically know the good guys from the bad guys.

So, good rant. I'm not quite in agreement with you, but you've made some excellent points.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I know some of the things I said were a bit silly, but at the time I was really annoyed and just wanted to get it out of my system. Every time something like this happens, the first thing I read is people calling for stricter gun control, to ban all weapons. I hadn't heard about those wanting the students to have been able to carry firearms. That's just silly, and, I think, a good example of people not knowing what they are talking about. It's frustrating, that's for sure.

[songspinner9.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem, I think, is that people equate gun control in their minds with banning things. Which of course, does nothing whatsoever. Too many of the ten year olds I teach have no concept of gun safety or what they really can do - I had this one kid a few years ago who got in trouble for wanting to bring his dad's hunting rifle to show and tell. The dad freaked out and volunteered to do a gun safety course for free for all the kids whose parents were willing. I thought that was a good response...they learned how serious guns are and how NOT to get hurt around them. My husband knows lots about guns, and also respects them as tools.

You're right - banning things makes kids more curious and less thoughtful about anything, really. Did these people not read about Prohibition in history class (yeah, that worked really well)? If people want to get something, and they're going off the deep end, then they'll find a way. Bans won't stop them.

Rants are okay, truly. I think it's a perfectly healthy response to this mess this morning.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a smart dad. My dad was always very insistant that his children know about his guns, that we saw him cleaning them in the living room and were able to ask questions. There was never any mystery or wonder about guns. We knew they could hurt us, and no one wanted that. Kind of like knowing not to touch the stove when Mom was cooking. But until figure this out, nothing is going to change, and I find that not only sad, but really stupid. Sigh.

[katakanadian.livejournal.com]

To me, stricter gun control does not equate a ban. I like your idea of requiring training. I do think there should be restrictions on how many guns a person has and there is absolutely no place for fully automatic weapons outside the military. There should also be a longer waiting period between ordering and receiving a gun even if the person already their training certification. I also don't accept the legitimacy of gun collections being like stamp collections. We don't allow child pornography collections.

I always hated the expression "guns don't kill people, people kill people". It's a load of bullshit. Guns make it much much easier to kill many more people. We don't have thousands of kids hospitalized every year with life-threatening knife injuries. Does anyone really believe that wackhead cold have killed 33 people with a knife or a bow before being caught? Yes, they could have killed more with a bomb but that really isn't likely. Aren't there more than 10,000 gun killings every year in the U.S? Versus how many bombings?

That's my rant.

[piplover.livejournal.com]

I think you're wrong about "guns don't kill people." A gun is a tool, like a car. Do you also blame the thousands of deaths by drunk drivers on the cars they're driving? Kids end up in hospitals because their parents are either idiots who don't know about gun safety, or the parents never took the time to inform their kids about the dangers of weapons. Yes, you don't see a lot of kids in hospitals with knife wounds - because they're taught from an early age that knives are dangerous and are not toys.
Don't blame guns for people's stupidity. Blame people. Guns are easier to obtain than a lot of people would like, and I don't think anyone should be allowed to have one without having a proper safety class and being certified. But even if that shooter had done all that, do you really think that would have stopped him from snapping and killing people? If a person is crazy enough, then they'll do what they will, and they'll find a way to do it.

[katakanadian.livejournal.com]

Actually I view cars similarly to guns. They result in far more deaths than would happen if people didn't drive. Again I don't advocate a ban but the world would be a much better place if there were half as many cars. How many people get killed in collisions with pedestrians/cyclists/boarders/bladers/scooters? Not many. How many people die every year from asthma and diabetes which they probably wouldn't have if people restricted their driving to carefully considered necessity and only occasional recreational use?