Guns

Many years ago, a woman sat in her car outside the apartment building where he ex-husband's parents lived.  Her only previous claim to fame was as president of an Engelbert Humperdinck fan club.  When the elderly couple emerges from the building, she ran them down, killing both.  It didn't occur to anybody to hold General Motors (nor Engelbert Humperdinck) responsible.

At around the same time, though, gun control advocates were suing gun makers because their products had been used to kill people.  It seemed illogical, but in the United States anybody is allowed to sue anybody about anything — and given the right juries, some of the suits might have been successful.  In 2005, Congress gave gun sellers immunity from most such lawsuits.

This does not provide total immunity.  If your gun, due to some manufacturing error, blows up in your hand when you are trying to kill somebody, you can sue the manufacturer.  If an individual goes to a gun dealer and says, "I want to buy a gun to kill my inlaws," the dealer is responsible.  Just lawfully providing a gun to somebody who later uses it to commit a crime is not punishable — and it seems to me that that is the way it should be.

Guns are designed to kill.  When a product does what it is designed to do, it's hard to fault the manufacturer or the seller.  If we want to eliminate gun deaths, the logical thing to do is eliminate guns —  but it's much too late to do that, if ever there was a time when it was possible.  It's probably too late, even, to reinstitute the expired ban on assault weapons.  Too many already are out there.

So what can be done?  I don't think background checks will do much good — but if all guns must be registered (including rifles and shotguns), and the last registered owner of the gun is held responsible for any crimes committed with that gun, people may be more careful with their weapons.  It also could help to limit the quantity of guns any individual can register, to reduce the problem of "straw buyers."

Of course, that won't ever happen.

Eddie Ray Routh

Eddie Ray Routh, the troubled veteran who killed "American Sniper" Chris Kyle and Kyle's friend, Chad Littlefield, has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.  Did he "know the difference between right and wrong," all that Texas requires to find a man sane?  Beats me.

One way or the other, though, there was craziness involved.  It is thoroughly crazy to put a gun into the hands of someone who has shown clear signs of serious mental illness and then blame him for shooting somebody.  What asshole from the VA decided Routh would profit from a little gun range therapy?  Maybe that's the guy who should be on trial.  No, forget that.  After all, it's Texas.

While in the car with Routh, Kyle texted to Littlefield, "This guy is totally nuts."  Was Kyle thinking the gun range visit might not have been such a good idea?  We'll never know.

Guns

"Black guns" (aka paramilitary/assault weapons) have been getting most of the press lately, but the real killers in this USofA are hand guns.  Lots of people have them.  Most of the people they kill are suicides, and, hence, don't catch a lot of attention.  If you're not especially important, blowing your brains out will bring very little publicity.

There are three reasons to own a hand gun.  One, of course, is for criminal activity.  Hand guns are excellent tools for gang assassinations, convenience store stick-ups, and such like.  Another, as noted above, is self-annihilation — although that probably was not the original motive for buying the damned thing.

The third reason to own a hand gun is fear.  FDR thought all of us ought to enjoy "freedom from fear," but that never happened.  What if that other comes to my house, and wants to kill me.  Shouldn't I be prepared to blow him (possibly her) away?

Me, I'm not afraid.  The worst that might happen, unlikely as it seems, is that I get killed by somebody who thinks that my household "wealth" is worth a murder.  That somebody, for sure, is a total asshole.

Personally, I don't see any reason for hand guns to be legal.  Frankly, I'm not especially agitated about assault weapons.  If you want to plink at paper targets with a hand weapon, a pellet gun ought to do the trick.  Those beebees  will penetrate the paper every bit as well as as a much more expensive bullet.  A shotgun will discourage your home invader a whole lot better than your Glock will.

I'm tired of fear.  It's time for freedom from fear.  Screw the "assault rifles."  Let's get rid of hand guns.  All of them.

The Only Thing...

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun," we are told, "is a good guy with a gun."

Okay.  I've watched all the cowboy movies, so I know the story line, but I'm unsure.  Does a "good guy" with a Glock necessarily stop a "bad guy" with a Bushmaster?  Does a bored-out-of-his-mind, fifty pounds overweight retired cop stop a twenty-something psycho who knows the old fat man is kind of snoozing around the main entrance to the school building?  Give me a break!

It sure as hell won't work in any secondary school, where the numerous "safety" doors are popped open by the resident youth for the sake of a smoke or a toke, and then propped open to accommodate the next "bell."  Granted, the doors won't all be open at the elementary school, but, on a warm day, most of the windows will.  Air conditioning is too goddamned expensive for your ordinary school budget.

Give the principal her own semi-automatic, to stop the carnage "earlier?"  All the principals I ever worked for would have been pretty useless.  Mine all were kind of "manly" men (and one manly woman), but they still would have shit their pants before getting into a fucking firefight.  Okay, one or two would have tried the firefight even with the shit in their pants, but they still would have been useless.

I don't pretend to know the answer to gun violence in the USofA.  There are a shitload of guns out there already, and I suppose the Connecticut slaughter is inspiring more sales of AR15s, just in case  President Blackie Socialist tries to take away our Constitutional Right to buy them.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a fucking lunatic with an explosive vest.  Try to ignore the collateral damage.

If American gun manufacturers also produced cordite, you could be pretty sure the NRA would lobby for the Constitutional right to wear a suicide vest to your local mall, church, or youth group meeting. I mean, that's the meaning of the Second Amendment.  Isn't it?