Guns are cool. Let's face it, it is fun to blast some unsuspecting clay pigeon to oblivion with a 12-gauge. Just when the disk thinks it finally tastes freedom and starts to believe it can actually fly, I provide a reality check.
So maybe more clay pigeons learned they couldn't fly by splattering on the rocks than as a result of my stellar marksmanship--10 percent accuracy--but I still enjoyed hunting clay.
Following my afternoon at the range, I reckoned guns are fun and bearable even if used too often against other people, since harm can be inflicted in more ways than pulling a trigger.
Several events this year changed my view; guns are a horrible invention, unnecessary in a supposedly civilized world. I was not influenced simply by the headline-making rampage of "The Sniper" or the shooting at the University of Arizona, but also since the crime rate rose for the first time in 10 years. Each day between 30 and 40 people fall victim to homicidal gun violence and nearly eight children also die daily as a result of guns. Do not forget Jam Master Jay, who serenaded us not but two years ago in Page Auditorium with Run DMC. His only request that night was a bucket of fried chicken and some weed (Last Day of Classes organizers only scored the former for Jay and his group). He never asked for a bullet in the brain, but he got one two weeks ago. Long ago, tragedies such as Columbine and other school massacres should have set off an alarm across America that something was wrong and guns clearly do more harm than good.
Unfortunately, some one keeps hitting the nation's snooze button, preventing Americans from rousing to combat the clear and present danger residing in our households. Why after all these senseless deaths does the number of guns in American homes equal the country's entire population? Guns serve little practical purpose. Most developed countries, such as Japan, England, Sweden, Denmark and others, limit private gun ownership and appear to be doing just fine.
Americans, unlike other people, are so madly in love with their Colts and Winchesters that we have ignore their constant danger. If we as a nation are willing to commit troops to eliminate a possible threat in the form of Saddam Hussein, why are we not willing to destroy an equally menacing peril in our own homes? While dealing with foreign threats to our safety, we should remember to seek to diminish domestic violence as other countries have done following their own tragedies.
Several years ago, following a small-town gun massacre in Port Arthur, Australia (an equally gun-loving nation) began buying back rifles throughout the country, making them illegal except for special rural cases. Following that legislation violent crime has decreased. Several weeks ago another gun rampage claimed innocent lives in Australia at Melbourne's Monash University. A handgun was used by a licensed owner in this case. Prime Minister John Howard and his conservative government immediately sought to implement stricter gun control laws and possibly buy handguns from its citizens.
The U.S. government, unlike its little brother Down Under, has not jerked its knee toward stricter gun control no matter how terrible the killing spree. This temporary paralysis stems from a brace applied by the most effective lobbying group north of the Rio Grande: the National Rifle Association.
Charlton Heston and his cronies cling to their guns as maniacally as disco fans to the past. In fact, following the Columbine shootings Heston did one of his finest gun-clutching demonstrations ever in Denver, promising that gun-control advocates would only get his weapon "from my cold, dead hands." He followed that performance with one in Flint, Michigan immediately after a first grader shot a classmate. At age 78, Heston, like most his age, won't be able to hold onto that gun for much longer thanks to senescence.
He along with other gun fans use The Constitution's Second Amendment as their first line of defense to keep their toys. They may be a well organized lobby, but they are far from a "well-regulated militia" so they must use only the second half of the amendment: their right bear arms. Fine, but they are a using a "living document" that is not infallible. Don't forget that prohibition was one part of The Constitution. It took the United States only 14 years to realize its mistake on that amendment. Now is a good time to adjust the law of the land, 211 years after the Bill of Rights, and take guns off the street.
Beyond their constitutional right, gun owners need their weapons for protection. These are most likely the reported 3 percent of illiterate citizens inhabiting the United States, failed by the public education system, who cannot read report after report explaining that more gun owners or their family members are injured by their own weapon than would-be attackers. Last year 11,000 people were murdered in the United States, most with guns. America is successfully terrorizing itself.
Guns no longer belong in the homes of Americans; we are too dangerous as a people for our own good. The British are no longer coming and if they were, what teenage girl wouldn't want Prince Will as their ruler? Americans no longer need to hunt to get their food, thanks to modern refrigeration. If sport is an issue, what's more exhilarating than using a bow and arrow? If it was good enough for Robin Hood, it should be good enough for any Busch drinker (tights are optional).
Modern society does not necessitate gun ownership, thanks to super markets and paintball. There is no practical purpose they serve other than to kill people and inflict terror.
The old, tasteless saying that appears on T-shirts and bumper stickers goes something like: "Guns don't kill people, I do." That's exactly the problem. We are violent animals. We do not need more weapons than we already have. Our infatuation with guns has gone too far and caused too much pain. Even without guns around, I will think them cool and the skeet will live without fear. I still think disco was cool, yet society is safer without that movement as it will be without smoking barrels.
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