<legitimate, law abiding owner<
This statement is an oxymoron when it comes to many gun owners. They're legitimate, law abiding, etc., until the day that they or their gun is used to kill somebody.
The problem in this country is very simple and you stated it in your intro. There are hundreds of millions of guns in the country and they are used everyday to kill people. Most of these killings are not committed by people with criminal records(only 25%). Two thirds of the gun deaths are not committed as part of any other criminal act(such as a robbery, rape, etc.).
For all too long we have allowed guns to be equated with power. The result is that people who feel powerless and insecure(like the two in colo.) see guns and gun violence as a means to redress their feelings of powerlessness. This theme is played out over and over again in movies and on TV. Guns=power.
There is a very simple reason that the U.S. has 30,000 gun deaths a year and Japan has about 30. We have hundreds of millions of guns sitting around in the hands of "legitimate" gun owners and they don't.
I don't expect that there is any hope of really disarming America, but, some modest action should be taken. For example, automatic weapons, such as assault rifles should be banned completely...no ownership, no sale, no import, no manufacture. There is no "legitimate" reason to own a weapon like these. They are designed for one purpose only and that is to kill other people. That's the attraction of owning them, it gives pathetic, insecure people a feeling of power... |
