Gun Control?

Many of you have likely heard the old joke about a fella who walked into a bar whereupon the barkeep pulled out a gun and hollered, “Hands up!” It is a riddle, why did the barkeeper do it?

Gun control articles are all over the media again with the recent set of killings that leaves communities and the nation grieving, Obama has set Biden the task of looking into control ideas and gun rhetoric is running rampant everywhere from the bizarre comments of the NRA head to the antigun folk rising up in righteous indignation.

Frankly I don’t really know what to make of all it. My wife’s side of the family is all pretty much gun totters with each household having many weapons and are ardent hunters. My immediate side of the family has no guns at all; I used to have one, a single shot 22 rifle I seemed to have lost somewhere along the line. I lost interest in hunting in my 20’s but even though I don’t understand the need and desire to hunt I respect it. Hell, I write blogs which most of my family thinks is pretty weird anyway and most don’t read them. I also think things hunted like deer need to be harvested; but I just stick them in pastures and raise them like cattle to be slaughtered when needed.

But I love data and what it tells us, but I’m swamped with data on this issue and have a hard time making sense of it. The NRA leadership does not seem to be reflective of NRA members and seems extreme and their data seems about as trustworthy and a bent rifle barrel as a lot of the data they use is from some time ago and they have effectively blocked much research for years which makes it hard to come up with meaningful data.

And then there is the guns themselves from my old single shot 22 rifle to handguns with some of my granddaughters hollering they are “packin’”. Then there are the nebulous assault rifles which seem to have nothing to do with hunting at all unless its humans or you are such a bad shot you shouldn’t be hunting at all. And the public is all over the place in their opinions though most seem support their interpretation of the 2^nd amendment to carry weapons but are mainly against assault weapons and seemed to be mixed up about hand guns.

What I do know is that it is big business – a 31 billion dollar industry in 2011. And we have a lot of them, somewhere between 270 to 300 million guns, enough for each citizen; but strangely with that it is 70 to 80 million of us who actually own them. 45 million of us own handguns. And they are expensive a .223-caliber semi-automatic use in the recent killings coast between $700 to $2,000. Gun sellers must love Obama as their profits went up 200% after his first election. Gun folk like Republicans and gave 93% of the lobby money to them in the 2012 election. And we rank 1^st in the world in gun ownership per 100 people.

We lead the world in mass shootings big time and have been called, perhaps justifiable a violent culture. I’ve always wondered why love scenes make a movie X and war films can be PG. Most of our mass killers buy their guns legally I’ve learned. I learned that 15 of the worst mass shooting in the last 50 years take place in our country. I learned that other gun toting countries like Israel and Switzerland have low rates of homicide compared to us. I’ve learned that 11 of our deadliest shootings have happened since 2007.  There are a bunch of charts that are reveling if you go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/

Well that’s enough for now. I wish Biden and his team well in trying to guide us through this morass. Since we have so many guns already I don’t see how we can control them very well. I do know that two of the scariest places I’ve visited were a gun show and a shooting range complete with bars and enough weaponry to have a war. There were folk there that just looked and acted plain bloodcurdling.

Oh yes, as to why the barkeep pointed a gun a man and told him to “stick ‘em up” the customer had the hiccups and the scaring cured them. I don’t know if the cure included a heart attack and a trip to the hospital or morgue.

Happy hunting for good will.

I've had this picture around for a while and it seemed a good place to put it in case my granddaughter "packers" are thinking of art work.

P.S. One place I don’t plan to move to is Kennesaw, Georgia where is has been mandatory since 1982 for the head of each household to have a gun and enough ammunition to use it.  Seems like an infringement of my personal rights. But if you want to find shirts honoring the Klu Klux Klan and raciest bumper stickers, it's your place.