Another handgun tragedy..

I hardly know what to say about this but I will try to put some thoughts in order here. Another one of our neighbors is dead, along with his wife, this time in a murder suicide. This quiet and friendly young man, who worked in a local business that we patronize, succumbed to trouble in his life thinking that a small handgun held an answer to his problems. We can take solace only in the fact that he didn’t feel the need to turn the weapon on their two small children too. Our thoughts and prayers go out to their family and friends.

As the shocking news sinks in, my thoughts turn to other friends and acquaintances that have died from gunfire. There have been so many over the years.

Some may not believe this, but I do not favor a “nanny state.” I heartily approve of all of the Bill of Rights, and am an advocate of liberty (Stupendous.)

But I do believe in progress, that humanity is ultimately perfectible, and wonder what we can do to change this culture of ours, a country where there are more guns than people, and more folks die from shootings every year than in automobile accidents. Are we safer because so many of us are armed? I don’t see how that can be when most victims are shot by people they know, yet to hear the 2nd Amendment fanatics, gun ownership is the essence of patriotism and good citizenship. Yet for every “armed citizen” story in the NRA Magazine, there are certainly hundreds of tragedies like the one I heard of this morning. There is a good reason why your doctor asks if you own guns.

I’ve said that I would allow guns to be carried anywhere if we could only get them off the television. We are a nation of vidiots, and staring in to the “wasteland” one sees hundreds of actors shot every day. Toddlers pick up guns and fire them. Where did they learn this?

As with many problems, the solution lies with education and sensible regulation. We can rise above our culture of death; but first we have to stop moving in the wrong direction.