Categorizing Things is Overrated

Guns Suck

February 15, 2008 /
AMENDED BELOW
 
 
How many more before we do something?
 
I work with a bunch of hunters.  They love hunting.  They love their guns.  And I think hunting, the way they do it – that’s just fine.  They hunt for the sport of it, but they eat the animals they shoot.  They also hang the heads in their homes, but you know, to each his own decorating scheme.  But I would vote in a second to forego the right to bear freaking arms, and take away my good buddies’ pastime.  You could count the number of shootings in England this decade on one hand.  Their police don’t even carry guns.  They don’t have to, because people aren’t allowed to own them, and by and large, they don’t.  Violent crime in England means somebody waving a paring knife.
 
I know that for every crazed school shooter, there are fifty responsible gun owners (or a hundred, or, you know, a lot).  I know that.  But these random violent shootings happen so often in this country.  Shopping malls, universities, churches, primary schools . . .  Even the Amish aren’t immune.  It is too easy to buy these things, and it is too easy for someone who’s having a bad day to just pick one up at the store real quick and then mow some people down.
 
Revoking the right to bear arms will never happen in my lifetime.  But what might happen is that I might just pack my family up and move back to England one day.  The weather may suck, but at least I can send my kids AND MY HUSBAND to school without having to pack a bullet proof vest in their lunch boxes.
 
AMENDED TO ADD:
 
See what the U.K. did in response to the Dunblane massacre in 1996.  I pulled this from Wikipedia, and if I wasn’t at work and had more time I’d do better than that, but I DO HAVE A JOB I must remind myself sometimes!  In my five nanoseconds of research after reading through this article, I was unable to find reference to another major school shooting in the U.K. since 1996.

******The Home Affairs Select Committee concluded in 1996 that a ban on handguns would be "panic legislation" and would do little to prevent a repeat of the Dunblane incident. It also said that rules governing gun ownership must be changed to prevent people such as Thomas Hamilton from owning weapons.[3]

The Cullen Inquiry recommended tighter control of handgun ownership as well as other changes in school security and vetting of people working with children under 18. However because the Hungerford massacre also involved a legal gun owner killing with his legally-held guns, public feeling had turned against private gun ownership, allowing a much more restrictive ban on handguns to pass.

Security in schools, particularly primary schools, was improved in response to the Dunblane massacre and two other tragedies which occurred at around the same time – the murder of London headmaster Phillip Lawrence and the wounding of six toddlers and a nursery nurse at a Wolverhampton nursery school.

Mrs. Ann Pearson, a friend of some of the bereaved families, founded a very widely supported campaign, named the Snowdrop Petition (because March is snowdrop time in Scotland), which gained 705,000 signatures in support, and was successful in pressing Parliament, and the then-current Conservative government, into introducing a ban on all cartridge ammunition handguns with the exception of .22 calibre single-shot weapons. The families of the victims were active in the lobbying campaign as was the Gun Control Network, also set up in the aftermath of the shootings, and whose members included parents of victims at Dunblane and of the Hungerford Massacre. The campaign was also supported by a number of newspapers, including the Sunday Mail, a Scottish tabloid whose own petition to ban handguns had raised 428,279 signatures within five weeks of the massacre.

Following the 1997 General Election, the Labour government of Tony Blair introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, banning the remaining .22 cartridge handguns, and leaving only muzzle-loading and historic handguns legal, as well as certain sporting handguns (e.g. "Long-Arms") that fall outside the Home Office Definition of a "Handgun" due to their dimensions.

5 Comments

  • Vern

    February 15, 2008 at 9:08 am

    Have you ever noticed how the NRA\’s version of the second amendment is only a fragment of the whole thing?  Theirs looks like this: "…the right of the people to keep and bear arms…. shall not be infringed".  What\’s with all of the "…"? The whole thing looks like this:A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
    free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
    infringed.Now, if the modern militia is the Reserve and the National Guard, doesn\’t the second amendment mean that the reserve and the guard should have guns?  How does that mean that everyone can own one? 

  • Nice Girl

    February 15, 2008 at 9:16 am

    Amen.  I fear this every day with both of my parents working in education.  I live in the false hope that my Dad is at least risk because he works at an elementary school, but who\’s to say that some parent won\’t get mad about a grade their kid gets in third grade reading and plow into the school with a gun?  ::shudder::
     
    Scary, scary world we live in these days. 
     
    Amanda  🙂

  • Erin

    February 15, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    … and those of us who work on higher-education campuses (three people in my IMMEDIATE family, myself not included) were just starting to feel like the security and alert measures that became so obviously necessary after VA Tech were going to help …
     
    I watched The Brave One on Monday night and hated it and what it was saying. Guns just suck. Let me know when y\’all are packing up and we\’ll come, too.

  • super jane

    February 18, 2008 at 10:02 am

    try working in financial aid at a university.  people get pretty irate when you work with their money.  we never shut our doors when speaking with students and we never leave anyone alone in the office.  it is so, so sad.

  • Nora

    February 20, 2008 at 8:43 am

    I have been thinking about a comment on this for a few days.  Growing up in gun culture, as a kids it was common here, gun racks in trucks a pistol tucked behind the back seat.  I will admit to worrying about having an unarmed population in the even of war. (Although personally we own none, so I don\’t know how much sense that makes.) However I have to admit I worry about exactly what you said, and had some fears when my husband was  a teacher. Reality is we are far more likely to be attacked in one of these disgruntled person shootings, or a robbery.  I wonder if removing guns would correct the problem, since it wouldn\’t correct the psychology that makes a person think they have the right to shoot up a bunch of their peers and then themselves.  However I have no problems making it much much harder to get one.