A Gun Rant

Every three hours a child is killed by a gun here in America. That's eight children a day, fifty-six per week. That's more than all the kids in fourth grade at Michael's school--both classrooms would be wiped out. In a week. For every child killed by a gun, four more are injured by guns. That would be the rest of the kids at  Michael's school. That's a startling statistic.

I hate guns. Vehemently. Go on and get up on your horse about rights to bear arms. Then go comfort the mother whose child accidentally shot himself and died, playing with Daddy's gun. I lost a friend that way. Or the parents of the teen who purposely killed himself with a gun because he couldn't take the bullying anymore. Or the mother of the child shot by accident on the streets in the middle of a gang war, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. How about the families of Columbine or any other school shooting? What do you have to say to them?

I had a stalking incident this past winter while out running. A pick up truck followed me and kept circling past me several times. The driver would turn his face away when I'd look at him so I couldn't get a good look at his face and his license plate didn't match the truck he was driving when the police ran the numbers for me later. "Get a gun," I was encouraged by several people. Seriously? Me? Carry a gun? Like I could ever bring myself to shoot someone else. I can't even cope with hunters--people killing animals for sport or food--and sport is clearly wrong. If I had a gun, I would be more likely to shoot myself or some other innocent person accidentally. And to put a gun in such close proximity to my child? Not a chance.

I borrowed this from Ira Pilgrim's webpage:
"The NRA's slogan, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people," is ridiculous. The fact is that guns do kill people, and people can kill people much more easily with a gun than with a knife.

There are two things that we are all agreed upon. First is that killing innocent people is bad and should, if possible, be prevented. Second, that guns are used by people to kill people as well as game. If the NRA slogan was correct, we wouldn't have those problems if we just got rid of the people. If we put enough guns into the hands of enough people, that objective just might be achieved."

Buying, owning, carrying guns is not the answer. How many children have to die from gunfire to make this clear?