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Sunday, February 4, 2007
Are guns too accessible?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I can’t turn on the news anymore without hearing about gun violence. It has become too much of an everyday occurrence that leaves me depressed and frustrated.
Last month I awoke to a television report about a man who’d been shot outside St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Norcross.
Last week a 12-year-old boy in Cherokee County shot another 12-year-old boy with a gun found in the home of one boy’s uncle.
On Friday, a bullet fired from a rifle pierced the roof and a wall of an Oxford, Ga. house and killed a mother of three. Two men had been target-practicing about 150 yards away.
I am not going to hide how much guns disgust me. I think they are one of the, if not THE, most vile contraptions on earth.
To give you an idea how much, I wrote three papers in college on guns and gun control in one semester. I cannot begin to tell you how many extremely heated discussions I’ve had with friends and family about guns.
While I strive to understand how anyone can think that any one person should hold that much power - the ability to intimidate and/or take someone’s life with a gun. I can’t deny an individuals constitutional right to bear arms, no matter how painful it may be for me to accept.
But as far as I am concerned, no one needs a gun at all. Not you, certainly not me. Not good people. Not bad people.
The general public has no reason to own firearms such as semi-automatic guns or assault rifles and should be completely banned and destroyed, along with all the other types of guns (as far as I am concerned).
There is no excuse, nor any reason, why guns should be allowed in homes with children. The two simply do not mix, and it is completely irresponsible parenting.
Don’t try the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument with me. I really despise that saying. Power changes people and guns provide more power than any one individual was meant to have.
You certainly can’t use the arguments “well, if we get rid of the illegals we won’t have a problem with guns” and “well, it’s the criminal element that gives guns a bad name.”
Tell those things to the 12-year old boy recovering from a gun shot wound, the family of the woman in Oxford and the countless other families who have lost a loved one to gun violence.
Knowing that guns are as accessible as your nearest big box super store, pawn shop and even the Eastman Gun Show at the North Atlanta Trade Center this past weekend, is nothing short of frightening.
Even more frightening are the number of completely irresponsible people who go out and purchase a gun knowing absolutely nothing about them in order to obtain some false sense of security.
Next week, I will propose my plan to eliminate some, if not the majority, of that irresponsibility.
How do you feel about guns? Do you feel some firearms should be banned and that others are too accessible?
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