Hear, hear bugs – I couldn’t agree with you more. Good to hear someone with real experience of them being rational and reasonable.
I grew up in the UK, where deaths by handguns still make front-page news. Yes, there’s more illlgal handguns on the city streets than there were, but we can still count gun-related homicides in the hundreds, not the thousands.
If people really want guns, then set up Federal regulations – so that when you buy a gun, you have to register it – and attend a course where you not only learn to shoot it competently, but also have to learn about correct storage, cleaning and maintenance. Which gets reviewed every few years – you don’t allow an 80-yr old blind person to drive a car, so why should you allow them a handgun? Licence guns to responsible, capable adults – we have to do it for cars, so why not guns?
A small, but horrifying, minority of deaths occur each year when kids find mommie’s gun under the bed and go play cowboys and indians. ..Or when someone tries to use their gun in a home invasion and instead has the table turned on them – they rely on firepower rather than their wits to get themselves out of a bad situation.
Or, as you pointed out, a police officer (who supposedly has rigorous training in handgun use) gets shot with their own weapon. These kinds of tragic accidents could be reduced, if only there were stricter controls.
NOTE – I’m not saying that handguns should be banned – I’ve lived over here long enough to realise that Hell Will Freeze Over before Americans give up their guns. As distasteful as I find them, you can’t mess with people’s 2nd amendment rights without serious repercussions. But there has to be a compromise, however minimal.
On the Virginia Tech massacre – personally I think that, even of there was a total ban on guns, Cho would have found another way to take down as many as he could….I don’t think the fact that he was heavily armed would have made a difference – he was determined to kill, and if not with guns, then he would have chosen another way. Maybe there would have been fewer deaths, but you can’t predict insanity.
Maybe the discussion should be about mental health, and the lack of provision here in the US to care for seriously ill people like him – rather than his method of killing.
I really don’t understand why – especially with organisations like the NRA – it all has to be black/white. Surely – to paraphrase Peter Parker “with great power comes great responsibilty”….yeah, have guns, but make sure that someone knows you do, that you know how to use them, store them and clean them, properly, and make sure that crazies/incompenents have Buckley’s chance of getting them. It may not stop future Chos – but it might help to stop some of the tragic – and totally preventable – accidents.
