My heart goes out to those that lost loved ones in Connecticut yesterday. I cannot imagine what they must be going through. I hope each one of them has someone there to help them. It is easy to blame the gun for the deed. I cannot for the life of me understand how the weapon can get blamed for the violence.
I do not own a gun. BUTd I do not consider guns to be inherently bad as many do. Something like this event can elicit some pretty intense reactions and feelings. Most people are pretty set in their view on whether they ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ guns.
There are a couple of points. One, if someone is raised in a family or environment where violence is a solution to a problem or difficulty in communication then that is what the person will learn. So, if you grow up that way and are confronted with a situation you don’t like, or you don’t like the other person’s view on things, then you may see no problem in hitting the person with a fist, baseball bat or shooting them with a gun! There, problem solved. “It worked for my father, brother, sister, mother or the tough guy down the street or in school – so why not for me.” Add to that, drugs of any sort, legal or illegal and you have a very dangerous mix.
If you do not like guns that is fine. I will not try and persuade you otherwise. That is what makes this country(the US of A) great! One has the freedom to believe what he or she wants. So far anyway.
But please take a step back and look at the broader picture. If you want to get rid of guns that is fine but what if that is not the cause of the these tragedies. There is a lot of evidence to the contrary. To look at just the guns as the cause and ban them and not solve anything would be a tragedy in itself.
Here are some interesting facts about gun ownership and violence in America:
1. Do some research and you will find that the actual percentage of people in the USA owning handguns is smaller than a lot of other countries. The individuals just own more of them. This site gives some interesting facts on guns and gun control in general. If you go down to the section “Allowances” you will see that per the laws in the USA it easier for a convicted criminal to legally aquire a gun than it is for a law abiding citizen. (That is pretty messed up.)
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
Now, if you are concerned about deaths by violence:
– 195,000 people die per year as a result of medical mistakes.
www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/11856.php
– 100,000 peole die each year from known side effects of prescription drugs.
http://www.alternet.org/story/147318
Compare those stats to the number of homicides from guns:
– And gun homicides per year according to Center for Disease Control(CDC) is: 12,129 (another source says 9,146 – not sure of the year on that one – perhaps 2007.)
And the homicide deaths for the ‘side effects’ of the pharmaceutical drugs do not include (I’m pretty sure anyway) the people killed by those on these drugs. Now there is a lot of talk that the reason that these violent crimes/shooting sprees have increased is due to the increased use of pharmaceutical drugs. The majority, by far, of people doing this crazy sh*t are on or have recently come off some Big Pharma drug or other. And the cases of someone acting this violently without drugs happens but is rare.
If there is an investigation into this area I hope that anyone connected to the medical field or the pharmaceutical industry not be involved in any way in any way. And investigators should not be barred from looking at any documents needed to resolve this.