Having just watched the noon news about two new shootings in Coeur d'Alene I've begun wondering what's happening to our psyche. Then I read CDA Dave's blog on guns. How timely. And he is so right. Where there is anger and guns the mix is often volatile.
He's right, too, there are no easy answers to the issue but an issue it is. I've met many women during my short tenure here who "pack", as they put it. Why? Maybe if I had a work schedule that began or ended in the wee hours and getting to my transportation was dark and remote I might consider it. But then with my paranoia I doubt I'd have such a job to begin with. But for bragging rights? What's wrong with this picture?
I met a man who bragged he even carries his concealed weapon when he goes to church. Go figure. There is a gun culture - hunter's and sportsmen. I have no problem with it - my husband's a Montana guy and used to hunt. My father-in-law was a deputy sheriff. My mother-in-law kept a .25 on her bathroom window sill obstesibly to take pot shots at stray cats but more likely as a safeguard, ineffectual as it would have been, against prisoners who might escape from the prison a block away.
They did from time to time but she never used that gun against escapees or cats. Dad never used his weapon and I doubt my husband could kill anything anymore what's more a human.
Have we become so desensitised by television and video games that we no longer realize that guns wound and kill? We have no idea what the pain is - it's all abstract and the actors turn up in a new series a few weeks later. We even have a President who never served in combat who initiated a shooting war. He talks about how he understands the pain of the families. What about the pain of the wounded? The closest I've come to a body penetrating wound was a mishap with one of my carving knives. I dropped it and drove it into my thigh as I grabbed for it. It hurt like hell and I bled like a stuck pig. It penetrated maybe a quarter of an inch at most but wow! Now I let it fall. I'd not like to experience worse. I can't begin to imagine how excruciating it must be.
What's the answer? Must we consider (to paraphrase) "those who live by the gun die by the gun"? Where are the flowers to stick in the barrel. Maybe those hippies of old weren't out of step at all.
1 comment:
Guns aren't the problem. Citizens have had guns in their homes for centuries. The problem is the person who is irresponsible. When I was a child, we didn't take dads' gun to school. We would have regretted it for a very long time. We were taught to respect others and their views. We didn't go out and shoot them because they made us angry. We were taught some morals. Morals that aren't being taught much in todays society. A lot of people want to blame the gun. The gun didn't shoot anyone. The human being holding the gun did the damage. We tend to want to shift the focus. Let's get to the real problem. It isn't the gun.
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