All those years I watched Westerns, I never once wanted to go back and live by the law of the fastest gun. Even if every one of us carried a concealed weapon, we would still be at a huge disadvantage if someone else pulled their gun first. Does anyone seriously want to walk through a shopping mall with weapons drawn, straining to pick out who might be a threat?
The mother killed in the Newtown massacre had surrounded herself with guns she thought would protect her. The only detail she left out of her fortified life was the unpredictability of human nature. She was shot by her own son using one of the guns she had bought to keep her safe.
I understand that many sane people want weapons for sporting and for defensive purposes. But there is no moral purpose served by military grade automatic weapons that counterbalances their danger to us all. Granting the right we all have to self defense, the more weapons we pile up beyond that need, the less safe our world becomes.
The following statistics are a condensed version of the article linked below:
In 2011, guns were used to murder 8,583 people living in the U.S., according to the most recent FBI data available. Among those murdered by guns, there were 565 young people under the age of 18, and 119 children ages 12 or younger — the latter number nearly equivalent to six Newtown mass shootings. And these figures include only homicides.
Then there are the stories of children killed in gun accidents and suicides. In 2010, the most recent year for which detailed Centers for Disease Control data is available, 129 people between the ages of 1 and 19 died in gun accidents. Another 749 took their own lives using a firearm, most of which were owned by a parent.
…The number of children and teens killed in 2008 and 2009 in the U.S. alone could fill 229 classroom with 25 students, according to a report released by the Fund report.
Every year our nation adds to the avalanche of guns, prisons and wars against terror. We have filled the skies with spy satellites and killer drones. Will our horrified spasm against every possible threat make us safe? Go to a museum sometime and study the dinosaurs. They had the most powerful biological defenses of all time. They were invincible in one sense, but in a more important sense, their impregnable defenses became maladaptive to their own survival. Are they a fossilized version of ourselves?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/child-gun-deaths-newtown_n_2347920.html