The recent killing spree in Wakefield, Mass. has inspired me to write about my views on gun control. This topic has been on my idea list for quite a while, but I have avoided it until now.
I lived in Wakefield for several months back in 1986, way back when I worked at Honeywell, and before I moved to Billerica. I shared an apartment with Ken, and we saw some strange stuff there, including a late night "high speed" chase of some van by at least ten police cars, if not more (the van evaded them). None of this has anything to do with gun control, but I thought I'd mention the tangential connection.
My thoughts on gun control amount to this: get rid of them. Sport shooters: Use lasers - photons make dandy projectiles. Personal defense: Use tasers or mace - both are more effective at stopping an assailant than a handgun. Hunters: Well, my personal theory is that hunters should enter the forest naked. Maybe they should be allowed to have a knife. Where is the sport in killing an animal with a bullet? Take a picture instead. If it'll make the hunters happier, shape the camera like a rifle scope.
As detailed here, the United States has an abominable record when it comes to firearms. One is over forty times as likely to be murdered by a gun in the US than in the United Kingdom, where handguns are banned. Similar statistics hold for suicides, where handguns are the method of choice in the US. Data here indicate that 30,708 people died from firearm inflicted injuries in the US in 1998. In all fairness, it is worth noting that these two sources disagree on the mortality rate for firearm related injuries, with the more conservative source indicating only a four to one ratio over the United Kingdom.
As for the Second Amendment, that just scares me in general. I don't know what constitutes an "organized militia", but my best guess would be those groups of crazies in Montana and similar backwaters. Do we really need to arm these guys? I'd personally like a little less of the Old West gunslinging mentality to persist into the twenty-first century.
Anyway, that's my two cents. It seems to me that the less guns exist, the harder it will be for nutcases to get them.
You can respond to my ranting here.
Sticks and stones can break my bones, but rants can never hurt me.