How I feel about gun control? Let me illustrate with a couple of stories:
It would have been 15 years ago that old friend Vince had his first big Art Exhibition. I won't tell you where this took place, except to say that it was in Australia where there are strict gun control regulations.
His exhibition was wildly successful. We were at the Opening -- and it was the greatest fun. Very interesting paintings and lots of good buzz from everyone, lots of art-lovers, media coverage, newspapers, TV, photographers and the resultant publicity resulted in a great many important sales. Kudos Vince.
Anyway, around lunchtime, a bunch of us, including an elated Vince, decided to go somewhere pleasant to eat, so we hauled ourselves down to a very nice river-side restaurant where we sat out in the winter sunshine in the courtyard at a big happy table and ordered ourselves lots of great food and wine.
You can visualise the scene: a very pretty bougainvillaea-filled courtyard with a low wall overlooking the river sparkling in the sun, lots of big white yachts, palm trees all along the river-banks, views of the surrounding parks, cool breezes off the water. The tropical dream, right?
It was a glorious afternoon with lots of fun, laughter, many bottles of good wine, good mellow company, great stories. Then, around 4pm, it felt like it was time to go so the usual wind-down conversations began.
And it was right then that a big policeman in a S.W.A.T. flack-jacket came up to us saying "Do you mind moving away. There's been a man shooting at you for the past two hours. We're just about to take him out so I suggest you get out of our way."
Surge of adrenalin. Looked out where the S.W.A.T. man pointed and there was indeed a man on a yacht with a shotgun taking potshots at all the people on the river-banks around. A lone yachtsman from somewhere else in the world who'd spent too much time alone at sea and had lost the plot being in a city full of people. His shots were pinging in the water immediately in front of us.
We all wanted to see what happened next so, not quite steady on our feet, moved enbloc into the restaurant and the party continued as we watched through the windows. There were about a dozen men in that S.W.A.T. team and since they had significantly more powerful weapons the yachtee surrendered quietly and was taken away, much to the disappointment of the bunch of very funny children already in the restaurant, who'd obviously seen too many movies and immediately started to act out what they wished they'd seen happen. Hilarious stuff and, along with Vince making a lot of very good jokes about irony, definitely a happy ending.
It would have been a very different story, yes?, if that man had been allowed to keep his more powerful weapons that had been confiscated for the duration of his stay in Australia. Nothing, perhaps, would have changed what happened inside his own head but having no access to serious fire-power the outcome of that melt-down was pretty much harmless. Maybe, at most, just the deaths of a great many barnacles on the rocks that lined the river.
So that's one story, and there's another more recent story along the same lines. Last month in Hong Kong, which also has very strict and well-enforced gun control, a man had a similar melt-down and went on a shooting spree, hitting a great many people. The S.W.A.T. team turned out and, yes, he went quietly, and his victims were raced to hospital where the doctors popped out the bullets, put in stitches and sent them all home.
It would have been a very different story, right?, in any country that didn't have such strict gun control in place.
So that's how I feel about gun control. You cannot change what's in the hearts of men and you cannot stop strange lonely folk having these melt-downs, but you can significantly reduce their fire-power by NOT selling powerful weapons and by strictly enforcing these controls, and that alone has the effect of pretty well limiting the damage these men can do.
Universal gun control everyone. PLEASE?
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Sorry Denise, but a resounding "NO" on this one. Too many examples to cite, but start with the L.A. riots where the police took care of themselves first, John Lott and his research, low crime stats in concealed carry states, the supposedly "gun free" cities that are crime ridden hell-holes, Big Sis and the DHS, the militarization and abuses of the police, and on and on. Plus how curious it is that the people urging you to give up your weapons have no similar inclination to give up theirs, an observation that - since you do know your history - leads us directly to the lesson that creating an armed elite creates two sets of rules: one for you and another for them, and theirs are better. A free person is armed and a peasant isn't; which to you prefer to be?
As the owner of a small armory - most of which have never been fired - I'll be the first person to tell you that guns are an (overpriced) pain in the ass. But I have them just the same, sort of an insurance policy against...whatever, based on experience of the riots and the evident hypocrisy and arrogance of the socialist/collectivists who feel that they know better than myself what's good for me, and are willing to reserve force solely for themselves to achieve their aims.
There's a saying - almost hackneyed yet true nonetheless - that the 2nd Amendment exists to protect the 1st. Petition for redress is fine, but when that's ignored, as it increasingly is, then you're left with force.
And that's the beauty of guns. They don't require great strength or years of training. They're technically simple really. And they allow you to say "NO!" - in any situation, not just a political one - and be taken seriously.
Maybe it's an American thing, but I want to be left alone and not bothered by the various hysteric, agenda-driven and know-it-all busybodies that increasingly infest politics. I want to be able to walk down the streets in the cities and not have some urban shithead see me as a potential easy target.* Ditto if on the rare occasion - and they are rare but dramatic which is why the media focus - if somebody on SSRIs goes looney-toons.** And if that means I have to have guns - shotguns, rifles, handguns, military pattern/black guns, antique, exotics - scattered about the house and on my person, pain in the ass as they are, then so be it.
Clearly, Denise, you've pushed button here.
All the best.
VicB3
*It seems every other woman around here is concealed carry. Plus something like a third of all recent gun sales are to Women. Mess with them at your peril.
**Conspiracy stuff to be sure, but with the holes, contradictions and anomalies in the narrative you do have to wonder if those recent events were some sort of psych-op exercise.
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