So You Think You Know How to Kill Someone?

 Guns, guns, guns…. just about every day in the news, someone has been shot by another person who thinks they know how to kill someone.  What we see, other than huge mass shootings with semi-automatic weapons such as San Bernardino and now Orlando, is that more people are wounded than are killed.  According to the Brady Project statistics, every day, 297 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides & suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention.  Of the 297 (again according to the Brady report) 89 of those people die – which means that a bit ove er 70% survive.

My theory is that of all the people carrying guns, including those of you who like to hide your gun in a concealed holster, most of you don’t know how to use your firearm properly!  If you did, the ‘kill rate’ would be much higher than 30%.  Oh, by the way, don’t tell me some of these folks were trying to wound rather than kill; this isn’t some B rated black and white cowboy show, it’s real life with real people who bleed and die.

Possessing a firearm of any sort is serious business.  It’s not macho, it doesn’t give you any special license to kill – like James Bond – and it doesn’t make you a member of a militia, military force, police department or special deputized vigilante group.  You are, unless a sworn officer of the law or an actual member of the Armed Forces, just a person with a gun! 

Then there is the matter of who should have a firearm in their possession (notice I said possession not control, because I don’t believe most of you are in control of your weapon); certainly one side says ‘nobody’ and another side says ‘everybody’; both of which, in my opinion, are wrong. The answer is somewhere in the middle of this argument and allows for protection of family, hunting for sport and other firearm safe sports.

Now another crazy person has while in possession of a firearm, destroyed the lives of, thus far, 50 innocent people.  And some other crazy people are trying to justify the act by saying “well maybe it is a judgment from God”, because Pulse was a Gay club.  What arrogance that causes these people to identify God’s judgement on anyone or group.  Obviously, the ‘self-appointed prophets’ haven’t read their own Holy Writings; if they did, they would find that God is the ultimate Judge and doesn’t need their help.  Oh yes, and there are those calling for ‘open season’ on all Muslims, even if they are citizens of the United States, because some identifying as Muslims have done some horrid things. 

I recently read some statistics that said over 3 million Muslims live in the United States; please tell me how many of them actually killed other citizens of the United States; another report shows over 80 million Christians in the United States.  Of the Christians, how many have fire bombed clinics and shot doctors who perform abortions.  The point here is not political; but do we judge all people of one religion because of what a few nut cases do?

So what’s my point?  Well I have a few:

1.    There are radicals in every religion, that doesn’t mean you have to be one.

2.    Nobody has the right to murder innocent people, regardless if they live or act different than you approve.

3.    If you don’t know how to use a gun, don’t buy one!  Guns are not designed to scare, wound or control someone else’s life … they are designed to kill, and they do kill, and when they kill, those people don’t regain their lives the next day – regardless of your experience in some video game.

I am not against firearms, but I do know that our Country is totally out of control with their use and we need to do something about it!  Calling each other names, politicizing the horrid acts of crazy people and condemning a race or religion of people, has not stopped the violence.  SO WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING IT?