They go boom

Nasty weekend. Not for me personally, but there were several mas murders this weekend. Several. As in more than one.

I hate guns. I really do. Before the incident I vacillated between frustration and surrender with gun laws. Then the West Virginia massacre happened...then the rape, torture, assault extravaganza of G and Me pretty much entrenched the idea of gun control within my own system of ethics.

I spent a chunk of time this weekend reading articles about the different mass murders: the Asian immigrant who lost his shit, the death of several police officers by a Neo Nazi twat, and the suicide/homicide of a man who shot his children and himself after discovering his wife was leaving him. This is the slow burn of sudden madness. Each case was really a culmination of disturbing behavior and hard economic times.

These incidents have renewed debate over the efficacy and necessity of gun laws. I've looked at dailykos blogs and comments, the comment section of whatever article I'd read, and I tried to take a step back from the articles themselves, look for patterns of...whatever meme, myth, or political stripe.

Just a few observations about the "pro-gun" rhetoric. These are paraphrases:

1. Guns don't kill people. Poeple kill people.
2. Guns are a tool
3. Cars kill more people than guns.
4. It's mostly gangs killing each other (haven't heard this one in a while)
5. 2nd Ammendment. Nanny nanny boo boo.

I'm sure there are more but I wanted to focus on these in particular. Within the rhetorical matrix, a major strategy by NRA types (and some moderates) is to diminish the role of the gun. After all there are lots of things that kill more people than guns" cars, planes, cancer, AIDs, cancer of the AIDs, and AIDs cancer. (In respect to cars I'm not convinced, but for the sake of argument I'll accept it). All of this might be true. It is also true that guns are a tool, if one says guns are inherently evil you could be construed as engaging in puritanical evil: objects, have no souls or intellects, cannot make decisions, etc. And gangs?? I think that's racist b.s nonetheless the function is to diminish the role of the gun.

So here's my problem with this line of reasoning. A gun has one function: to kill.
The sloganeering of the NRA is specious at best. A gun isn't designed to make donuts or change the tv channel from ESPN to Bravo. Nor is it intended as a nonlethal deterrent, that is at best a secondary, and more realistically a tertiary ability, once you factor in the fragility of human flesh and the unpredictable nature of bullets. (The real secondary attribute is intimidation, fear of death).
Yes, there are things that take more lives than guns, this is because a) they are simply more effective at killing (nuclear bomb, AIDs) or b) their ability to kill is the ole law of unintended consequences (cars).

Cars may kill a lot of people, but we have preventative measures ranging from seat belts and airbags, to that magical thing called a driver's license, which certifies a base level of competency--physical and mental-- while assisting law enforcement in holding drivers accountable.

And yet guns remain a highly effective means of killing with no real system of checks and balances behind them. 50% of all guns sales occur at gun shows which manage to circumvent all federal regulation---more than one high school shooter has purchased firearms at these events.

Getting close to dojo time, think the next time I write about guns the topic will be the 2nd Amendment.