While it's still fresh in our minds, I'll add a few more comments to the Florida school shooting in particular, and gun control in general.
I can't imagine anything more horrific than being pinned down anywhere (eg., school, mall, indoor or outdoor auditorium), and listening to the sounds of death—the screams of the victims and the footsteps of the villain, as they get louder and closer.
My thoughts and prayers go out to each victim of this most recent tragedy, as well as the many others that we have heard about in these past few years.
I can't forget the other victims, too, those that were injured but not killed, as well as the parents, loved ones, and friends. And we can't forget the staff and students who were in the school but made it out alive. We all saw them on national television with their hands on top of their heads, being escorted out to safety.
I know I have dealt with some of this in my previous column, but I feel the need to expand on it while it's still fresh—and while the rant of "gun control" is still echoing on late night talk shows, television interviews, newspaper articles, and water coolers everywhere.
It's clear something must be done, but gun control is not the answer.
My basic premise is that we can have all the gun laws we want, but the mass shootings would still happen. It is desperately naive and irresponsible to think that more gun laws would create a safer world.
There is no question that if the bad guys had their guns taken away we would have a better world. That's a no-brainer. But the world doesn't work that way, and the bad guys won't turn in their guns, so so we need to come up with a more rational approach.
Quite frankly, I don't have a concrete solution, though I suggest bringing family into the mix would be a key factor. I trust you agree that something must be done, but disarming law-abiding citizens, so they become defenceless targets, will solve nothing. In fact, it would make the matters worse.
Also, we need to come up with a factual response to the hysteria that always follows these tragedies. I will start with asking a few questions (two this week and two next week):
1. Do guns kill people, or do people kill people?
Don't forget that a gun is a mere tool in the hand of a deranged man or a woman. Take the gun out of their hand, and the problem is diminished, but not gone. Getting the root cause for the anger and evil in the shooter, before the shooting, is a step in the right direction.
So I suggest we have a people problem, not a gun problem. And that's where we start.
There is no question that guns kill people, but they never do it on their own. Guns or rifles must be engaged by people, and that is what needs to come under this scrutiny. Really, really messed up people, combined with guns or rifles, create serious havoc.
Law-abiding citizens, hunters, and such, should not have their protection and recreation taken away because of a few wackos.
2. What weapon is used the most to kill people?
Guns and rifles, right? Wrong, by a long shot. Our focus these days is on guns and rifles, but we tend to overlook another weapon that actually kills more people: knives. They are used to kill more people than guns—in fact, it's not even close: According to my most recent statistics, three to four times as many people were killed by stabbing than shooting last year alone.
So using the gun-control advocates' logic, shouldn't there be a knife-control law while we're at it? What about drunk drivers that kill people, or even road rage: Should we ban cars, too?
I'm not trivializing this whole discussion, believe me. It's quite the opposite: It's just that we can't just collapse into a reactionary hysterical heap; we need to think things through.
To be continued next week.
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