There’s a guy sitting at a biker bar, just looking at his drink. He stays like that for half an hour. Then, a big trouble-making biker steps next to him, takes the drink from the guy, and just drinks it all down.

“No, it’s not that. This day is the worst of my life. First, I fall asleep, and I’m late to my office. My boss, in an outrage, fires me. When I leave the building to my car, I found out it was stolen. The police say they can do nothing. I get a cab to return home and when I leave it, I remember I left my wallet and credit cards there. The cab driver just drives away. I go home and when I get there, I find my wife in bed with the gardener. I leave home and come to this bar. And when I was thinking about putting an end to my life, you show up and drink my poison…”

As the flight was just finishing its boarding protocol a man sitting next to a little girl turned to her and said, “I understand flights go faster if you have a conversation, would you mind talking with me?”

The little girl slowly closed her book she was about to get into and replied, “Well, okay, what would you like to talk about?”

The man said, “I don’t know, how about we discuss nuclear power ?”

She said, “That could be interesting, but before we begin answer me a question first.  A deer, a cow, and a horse all eat grass, but the deer leaves pellets, the cow patties, and the horse clumps of dried grass.  Why is that?”

The man puzzled replies, “I’m don’t really know.”

The little girl says, “So you think you can have a conversation about nuclear power when you don’t know crap?”

Lets look at this logically first.  and go from there.  We are in agreement that there are criminals who have violent and or murderous tendencies that live in our society yes?  Okay, lets talk about why murders occur in our society.

First lets talk about the criminal mind and its intentions.  Okay we all know that most crime is impulsive by nature.  That is to say people know that what they are doing is wrong usually before they do it but at the moment they are doing it the law is irrelevant.   So even though they know the law forbids the action, they commit the action not thinking about the law.  Thus they will break laws regardless of that knowledge.  Impulsive action is response without thought to stimuli such as environmental, emotional, or internal.  The act occurs before the logical mind has opportunity to dispute the morals or right and wrong of the act.

and if we understand that then lets look at the murders in America and how they are committed.  So in 2004 here in America;

Murder, Types of Weapons Used
Percent Distribution by Region, 2004

So yes the lions share of killing was committed by firearms, but the figures also show that killing occurs without firearms too.  So we have established that there are killers among us and they don’t need guns to kill, then we have to logically realise that if you take the guns away, people will still be killed.

Next step, Those of us who abide by the law, who follow the rules set out by the governing bodies put there to help us live comfortable and relatively safe lives know the same laws the criminals break.  So if the law to remove guns is passed, who will turn them in?  Us, the law abiding populace.  So we are disarmed and the criminals break one more law and have their guns.  But has disarming us accomplished anything?

Information found http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0506/0506msswiss.htm states; according to Thomas Sowell in, “Gun Control Myths: Gun Restrictions and Murder Rates” , statistics actually negate any positive correlation between owning a firearm and higher murder rates; though the figures are often manipulated in order to support the call for gun control. Indeed, Israel, New Zealand, and Finland are known to have high rates of gun ownership and low rates of murder. Furthermore, in the U.S., white people own more guns than blacks, yet have lower murder rates. There are more people who possess weapons in rural areas, yet urban areas have higher rates of murder.

The following information was found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm ;

Victimization

   Firearm-related crime has plummeted since 1993, then slightly increased in 2005.
   Nonfatal firearm-related violent crimes, 1993-2005

   Nonfatal firearm crime rates have declined since 1994, before increasing in 2005.

   Nonfatal firearm-related violent victimization rate, 1993-2005

   After 1996, less than 10% of nonfatal violent crimes involved firearm.    Percent of violent crimes involving firearms, 1993-2005

• According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in 2005, 477,040 victims of violent crimes stated that they faced an offender with a firearm.
• Incidents involving a firearm represented 9% of the 4.7 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault in 2005.
• The FBI’s Crime in the United States estimated that 66% of the 16,137 murders in 2004 were committed with firearms.

So are we thinking that if we could magically make all guns in the world vanish from existence that criminal killings would drop by 66%?  Unfortunately I can’t find anywhere that tells us how many of the 66% were premeditated or impulsive killings, but would that really matter?  My thought is that if someone has premeditated that they are going to kill, the gun not being there is not the obstacle.  Further if they suddenly have the impulse to kill and there isn’t a gun there, clearly they will still attack their victim with murderous  intent.

In an article in Time Magazine regarding the effects of television violence relating to actual violence Psychoanalyst Ner Littner said, “There is no such thing as a single simple cause or a single simple solution. Searching for scapegoats allows us to avoid facing the problem of why we are violent, and also postpones the solution.”  Thus using ownership of firearms as a scapegoat to murderous and or violent tendencies helps no one.

The next thing a lot of people will shout about is children getting a hold of guns and either injuring or killing themselves or their friends.  To me the issue there is a lack of proper discipline and instruction from parents and those closest to the child. I am not saying that accidents would not happen if parents taught their children about gun safety, but I am saying that the number would be greatly reduced. And as far as accidents go, whether its with a gun or falling off a building, or playing in traffic, or just any kind of fatal accident, kids will be kids and we as adults have the responsibility to keep a closer eye on those kids.

 If the adult who owns the firearm takes the time to buy a gun safe, a trigger lock, an ammo safe, and store the ammo separate from the guns, plus teach the child that the guns are not toys, well then it stands to reason that the child would be more respectful of the guns and avoid them when the adult is not around.  Of course that works best when the child has no emotional/mental health issues they are dealing with; but in that case the adult is the one who must take the additional responsibility and keep the guns out of that child’s reach.

I have a son with “issues” and while I do own a 12 gauge pump shotgun for shooting clays at the range with my father, I do not have any other firearms in my house.  The shotgun is kept in a locked gun case, in a locked storage area.  I also let my father keep all my ammunition with his guns, at his home.  With that my ex-wife and the mother of my son is with the local police department and she does have firearms.  My son has been well taught regarding the safety and handling of pistols and guns.  We all are also very careful with our weapons when he is around.  Showing them every bit of the respect they command and making sure he knows we practise what we preach.  In general they are never where he can get to them when we are not around.

Now I am not saying that there is evidence that gun control or registration does not work, but there is no evidence that it does work either.  Its much like an individual with a cold.  He has a cough, a stuffy nose, and is running a fever, so we treat the fever, the cough and then the stuffy nose, great, but he still has the cold until it runs its course.  We can’t cure a cold yet, we can’t cure violent tendencies either.  What I am saying is if we want to reduce violence, we need to stop skirting the issue by pointing fingers at symptoms of it.  There is no cure, and taking freedoms away from those who are responsible enough to handle them won’t make any difference in the symptom either.