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Submitted by GDWilliams (not verified) on December 20, 2012 - 4:28am.
Whether the guy was a typical gun owner, or even whether he could legally own a gun isn't the issue at hand. It's the ubiquity and presence of guns among "typical" owners that assures it wont take long for someone doing B&Es on houses, businesses, or cars, to find some "typical" owners arsenal.
This also ignores the simple fact that more people are killed with their own gun than house invaders, armed robbers, or muggers die in the commission of a crime against those same gun owners.
The point is....guns make it far too easy, far to quickly, for someone suffering a momentary lapse in rational judgement due to the sort of emotionally jarring event that can happen to all of us, given the right circumstances. Like being armed with a concealed carry license, losing your job meaning losing the house, having several drinks to ease the shame and guilt of telling the wife, only to find her in bed with a neighbor when you get home. It would take a strong person to not.. at least have the /notion/ of killing somebody cross a person's mind. And that's only one of a thousand possible scenarios where a firearm in the hands of someone who is a "typical" gun owner, but who is now on a path toward a massacre. Whereas if they only had access to a knife or a bow, one maybe two people might die before the rest escape and police show up.
Criminals tend to kill other criminals with guns, so the "only criminals will have guns" excuse is pointless. Law-abiding citizens are killed by other law-abiding citizens more often than by criminals with guns. It's the neighbor or fellow worker who snaps for one reason or another that engage in these massacres OR one family member kills another mistaking them for a burglar, or is shot due to careless storage or handling.
Not the point
Whether the guy was a typical gun owner, or even whether he could legally own a gun isn't the issue at hand. It's the ubiquity and presence of guns among "typical" owners that assures it wont take long for someone doing B&Es on houses, businesses, or cars, to find some "typical" owners arsenal.
This also ignores the simple fact that more people are killed with their own gun than house invaders, armed robbers, or muggers die in the commission of a crime against those same gun owners.
The point is....guns make it far too easy, far to quickly, for someone suffering a momentary lapse in rational judgement due to the sort of emotionally jarring event that can happen to all of us, given the right circumstances. Like being armed with a concealed carry license, losing your job meaning losing the house, having several drinks to ease the shame and guilt of telling the wife, only to find her in bed with a neighbor when you get home. It would take a strong person to not.. at least have the /notion/ of killing somebody cross a person's mind. And that's only one of a thousand possible scenarios where a firearm in the hands of someone who is a "typical" gun owner, but who is now on a path toward a massacre. Whereas if they only had access to a knife or a bow, one maybe two people might die before the rest escape and police show up.
Criminals tend to kill other criminals with guns, so the "only criminals will have guns" excuse is pointless. Law-abiding citizens are killed by other law-abiding citizens more often than by criminals with guns. It's the neighbor or fellow worker who snaps for one reason or another that engage in these massacres OR one family member kills another mistaking them for a burglar, or is shot due to careless storage or handling.