Don’t be Fooled…

I write this as an American that was raised with firearms, taught to respect firearms, and also to respect “the Law”.

We have been enduring an onslaught of talking heads and politicos telling us we have a GUN problem in the USA.  Anyone espousing such nonsense is either a complete moron or they are a liar.  My money is on the second one, but it’s entirely possible some of these people could be both…

Firearms, and more specifically the dreaded semi-automatic firearm have been around a hell of a lot longer than “mass shootings” have.  And more importantly, they do not shoot themselves.

When Cain killed Abel, God blamed Cain, not the rock.  For my entire adult life, all you ever hear about is how evil the “rock” is…

There are a lot of “reasons” why somebody might go off the rails and kill someone, too many to list. Some even justified, in my opinion.  But a gun is simply a tool, it isn’t the reason somebody does what they do.  If somebody REALLY wants to kill someone, they’ll find a way to do it, regardless of the access to a firearm. 

And if you happen to be the poor bastard on the receiving end?  You’d better hope you’ve got more than 911 on your cellphone for help, or your ticket is gonna get punched.

There are only two reasons the political class gets involved in gun control – neither of them being care for their constituents – money and control. 

On the money side, pols that “take a stand”, either for OR against, can count on “donations” to their election campaigns from the various gun organizations for toeing the line.  If you want to get “endorsed” by anti-gun orgs for example, you better not say ANYTHING about the responsibility of the criminal or mental health – ALL your ire must be directed at the gun.  “Guns are bad, mmm’kay?”

As for the control side of things?  Does that REALLY need to be spelled out?  Every despot over the last 100 years disarmed their populace before visiting unspeakable horrors ON said populace.  China.  Russia.  Cambodia.  Cuba.  Germany.  The list goes on, you get the idea. I’m curious to see what happens to Australia and New Zealand over the next decade or two… Judging by the gratuitous strong-arm tactics employed by the cops during the Plague, I’d guess the general population is basically under complete “iron fist” control down under, which is bad news for the citizens.

Seriously, think about how bad things are right now, half way through 2022.  Think back to the unbelievable restrictions /they/ put their people under during the Plague.  And that’s what /they/ did knowing we have more weapons than PEOPLE in this country…just imagine what they might try to roll out on us if we were unarmed? 

If, and that’s a BIG if, the politicos tried everything at their disposal and we still had a problem with violence, then maybe, just maybe it might be time to see if there are in fact some “common sense” solutions around the guns themselves but we are a looooong way from that.  That isn’t the place to start, making the law abiding sitting ducks for the lawless. All you ever hear about “justice reform” involves leniency for repeat offenders, and all you hear about mental health care on a National level is…zip, nada, ziltch.

I believe anyone charged with a felony crime committed with a firearm should have 20 years added to their sentence and no “gimmes” for juvenile offenders.  Make the penalties that much harsher.  If they can add on “hate crime” penalties,  why NOT?  Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows a loaded gun could go off in someone’s hands, especially in a heat-of-the-moment situation. Why not consider every brandishing of a firearm in the commission of a crime, attempted murder? If you actually kill someone in the commission of a crime – I say you should get the death penalty.   No 20 years of appeals, no legalese nonsense, you just get your lights turned off, forever.  Maybe 90 days for a post-trial review, to make sure no glaring mistakes were made.  Felons caught with a firearm?  20 years, hard labor.  If that firearm happens to be stolen?  20 years AND your thumbs removed… When getting caught up in “the system” is seen as a right of passage and not a deterrent, clearly things aren’t working and you’ll never have a civil society, much less a safe one.

As for the whole mental health angle?  That’s a whole different ball of wax, but yes I’d wager that ALL mass shooting events were due to seriously disturbed INDIVIDUALS, that may have been stopped with the proper mental health affirming intervention.   Duh.  But since that didn’t happen, and likely never will because our government is far too corrupt to help its citizens, we get whackos going off instead of simply being put to sleep for the benefit of society.  Yes, I know, very non-PC there.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we as a society are doing ourselves an unforgivable disservice by allowing so many mentally deficient people to run rampant over our country.   Hell, some of ’em even get elected to office!

And now, in this day and age, knowing what we do about these sub-human wretches that do these things, I also believe any “news” outlet that publishes photos of these killers should be fined substantially at the very least, and publishers jailed if they make a habit of it.  Same for social media.  No more “press darlings” made from psycho/socio-pathic cretins, please and thank you.

In short, crazy people are gonna do crazy stuff, guns or no guns.  How many maniacs have gone on knife attacks in the last decade or so, racking up double digits of victims?  How about the bombers?  Or the twisted sacks of excrement that drove vehicles into crowds to rack up a nice, high body count?  Or the dealers cutting their product with Fentanyl, killing untold thousands?  There are myriad ways to take someone’s life, guns are just one.  The flip side of course, is that a gun is the BEST self defense tool you can own.  And with all the ways someone else can try to ruin your day and/or end your life, I think being a responsible gun owner is the smart way to go for strictly defensive purposes. “If it saves one life”, right?!?!

Compassion and empathy are very valuable traits, but when your compassion leads to actually endangering your society on behalf of the criminal element, it’s past time to reassess.  If there is a truly “revolving door” in prison and recidivism is really as bad as they say it is, that’s your low hanging fruit right there.  Put a hard stop to that, and watch violent crime decrease.  How many times do they let a dog bite before it’s deemed a dangerous animal and euthanized?  We should follow the same guidelines for “career criminals”.  We need to face up to the reality that some people are just no damn good, and deal with them as the problem they truly are, not some sociological experiment.

I’m no scientist or social worker, but I’d guess that IF criminals are locked up, or buried, the chance of them committing violence against an innocent victim are pretty slim…regardless of how many guns are in the hands of responsible citizens.

Of course, this is just my 2 cents on the subject…

Thanks for stopping by!