THE GUN ISSUE NOBODY THINKS OF

THE GUN ISSUE NOBODY THINKS OF

It happened in the Oregon campus shooting. Two nearby spectators were armed. They knew full well what was going on. But they chose not to become part of the scene. “If we’d gone in and started shooting,” one of them said, “the police might have shot us.”

Think of it—during a mass shooting, every person using a gun becomes a target.

For starters, the real killers get the jump on everyone. Always.  If, as happens too often, the murderer comes in with an AK47, he has long seconds to spray the room before anyone else can respond. Unless people in the audience also have AK47s, or they’re sitting around with loaded guns on the table, they and their guns are useless. 

Additionally, by the time the cops get there, the “good guys with guns” can look exactly like the “bad guys with guns.”  How are police to know the difference?

Just ask your local policeman how well an armed populace works. Most will quickly respond, if asked, that more guns in more hands simply causes more problems.

This kind of multi-armed scenario didn’t work particularly well in the Wild West. It certainly won’t work in normal society. Yet sadly, our own decent citizens are becoming “radicalized.”  They think they can “fight back” if every one of them owns a weapon. They think a “gun free” area is an invitation to mayhem.

Well, remember the military psychiatrist on an army base who killed fifteen of his fellow soldiers? Tell us—was that a “gun free” zone?

Most of us are horrified at having no good answers for mass shootings.  Yet believe it or not, there IS an answer.  Multi-shot, repeater weapons in the hands of civilians should be outlawed, made illegal.  If you don’t believe this, tell us what they’re good for—what possible benefit they’ve ever provided . . . besides killing lots of people in just a few seconds.   

So it’s everyone’s choice: Any one of us can now choose to be the gun-ready mother in Target—the one whose three-year-old rummaged in her purse, found her loaded gun, and accidentally shot her.    

Or we can be one of the enraged male drivers on the freeway—the two who pulled off in a gas station to wreak their vengeance, and who managed, somehow, to kill each other.

One last thought: for every person who defends himself with a gun, statistics say that hundreds of others are killed with privately-own guns—accidentally or on purpose. 

   

My latest book: “Revenge of the Jilted Draperies:  and other sweet-and-sour stories” now available through Amazon—or autographed, through me: maralys@cox.net.

A ten-dollar gift for Christmas.