Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Is There Such A Thing As A "Responsible" Gun Owner?

I've written as much about guns, I think, as I have about any other topic.  (Case in point.)  Maybe it's because, like taxes (another topic I've written about frequently), guns in our society just feel, at this point, like an awful inevitability.  And, hand in hand with their presence, the violence that almost inevitably erupts from their presence.

We are told, of course, by the National Rifle Association and its fellow-travellers in the so-called "gun rights" movement that the presence of guns is no cause for alarm, because of the ownership of guns by "good guys"--i.e., the so-called "responsible" gun owners who scrupulously follow safety procedures with regard to the handling and storage of their lethal toys.

But the good-guy myth is just that--a concept that exists rhetorically only.  Just ask Elizabeth Holtzman, a great progressive politician whose political career was cut tragically short by a three-way Senate race in 1980 that gave New York and an unlucky national Alphonse D'Amato, a man who could not be bought (just rented by the hour).  Jeez, wasn't Reagan bad enough that year?

But I digress.  Take a look at the statistics she provides on gun violence in this New York Daily News article, and tell me if you still belief in the good-guy-gun-owner myth.

And if the macro-picture doesn't do it for you, take a look at the micro-picture.  And know that this could have been any child, anywhere.  Around the corner.  Or in your home?

And then ask yourself:

Is this a myth I can afford to believe in any longer?

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