I was raise in Southern West Virginia where guns were as
common as grass. There was not a high
rate of deaths while I was growing up for one reason. Parents took seriously
their responsibility for training their children from an early age the correct
way to handle a gun and to respect the power of a gun. Mentally ill family
members were not allowed around guns. At that time most mentally ill people
were locked away in hospitals for the safety of the public and themselves
.
Still I had an aunt shot and killed by her sister because
they were playing with a gun. My aunt left behind an infant daughter who was
raised by an older aunt and my grandfather. Sylvia Marie was 25 years old when
she died from a gun shot wound to the chest. I was taught how to use a gun at age 10. I was always told never to
point a gun at someone unless you planned to kill them and accept the consequences
of your actions.
In the early 1980s president Ronald Reagan closed the mental
hospitals in this country promising that community treatment facilities would
become common as grass. Well that did not happen and because of it our society
has unstable individuals wondering the streets. These individuals are free to
buy or steal guns from people who take no responsibility for ownership. There
are no consequences for selling a gun to a mentally ill individual who then
turns around and kills mass numbers of people. Where there are laws they are
simply not enforced. There is no personal liability for people who sell guns to
unknown characters at gun shows. It is not like when I was growing up and you
knew the person that you were selling a gun to and knew that person’s
character.
Automatic guns have no real purpose in this country other than to cause mass casualties.
No one would ever hunt with one of those weapons. It would be un-sportsman like from the
beginning. I can understand having cubs that own those types of guns if the
public wants the experience of firing one but private ownership is just plain
stupid. You are inviting a criminal to break in and steal those types of guns
for the express purpose of killing law enforcement agents.
Now I firmly believe in owning a hand gun for self-defense as long as the owner practices
responsible ownership. Which includes being trained how to fire one and how to clean
and store a gun in a safe manner. Anyone living in the home of a gun owner
should also be trained. Except for gun
collectors no gun owner should have more than five weapons in their own home at
any time. Gun collectors should be held to a higher standard of ownership where
they are expected to have gun safes and protections to prevent their guns from
being taken by criminals.
As far as gun laws are concerned I believe you should only
have laws that the law enforcement agencies are expected to fully enforce. If
they don’t enforce them and someone dies because of it then they should have to
answer for that failure. Gun owners
should be required to take training and pass an exam both written and practical
before they can take a weapon home.
If these rules were instituted, I am reasonable sure we would have fewer mass shootings.
As long as we as a society allow
individuals to buy large numbers of semiautomatic and automatic guns and allow
gun sellers to sell to anyone without reasonable assurances that their guns
will be responsibly care for and used then we are inviting more mass deaths.
