Something must be done about gun violence in our country. Unconvinced? Maybe this chart will help:
How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown?
The mentally ill must be identified? That is true, but not good enough. Close the gun show loopholes and require common sense background checks? Uh, yea-uh. Keep guns for protection? I’m keeping mine. Yet, we must do something. Here’s an old idea: a gun buyback program. Most criminals need the money more than law abiding citizens; therefore, they are more likely to turn their guns in. And give enough money for each gun. How about $1000 for each gun; handgun, long gun or shotgun. Too much money you say? What’s a life worth. My only question is whether pellet guns should be included:
Serial Squirrel Killer
George was ready for work; freshly showered and shaved and smart casual in khaki pants, light blue oxford button down shirt and brown Rockport slip-ons with coordinated, but not matching belt. He paused. A notion rustled through his mind like a warm breeze through dry leaves. He peeked out his beige mini-blinds and saw movement in the top of the oak tree. It was squirrel 35. George had watched him chase squirrel 36 through the neighborhood all week, hearing their barking and chittering and the occasional chattering of toenails on bark as the two of them raced through the neighborhood on the ground, up the trunks and through the branches of the oak trees. He had seen them playing hide and seek and chase with Squirrel 34, in the same manner, just last week, however, squirrel 34 was now dead, having succumbed to the bite of the Big Kat. Squirrel 34 had been in the top of this same oak tree which stood on the fence line of his northeast suburban neighbor’s property, munching on the same new growth, 5 feet closer, when, THONK, the Big Kat spit one into her head and she fell, THUD, dead, on George’s side of the fence. He had double bagged and dropped her into a garbage can at the golf course on his way to play, that mid-September Saturday. Now, it was Monday, and squirrel 35 was staring at him with black tree rat eyes, almost mocking him and eating the light green new growth at the tip ends of the limbs in the same way 34 had, pawing at the shoots kangaroo-like, pulling them close. George slowly raised the mini-blinds, lifted the Charley Bar and then unlocked the sliding glass door. Squirrel 35 was having a late breakfast and seemed to not hear George cautiously slid open the glass door. The sun was bright in the milky blue sky behind the outstretched branches of the perimeter oak as George observed the puffy tailed critter. His gun, a GAMO Big Kat 1200, had dropped many squirrels and 35 would be an easy shot from 30 feet, however, he did not want the creature to fall into the bushes on his neighbor’s side of the tall cedar picket fence which separated the yards, and start stinking, like squirrel 31 had, a few weeks earlier. Some folks liked the hairy little vermin. George stood watching 35 munching in the top of the oak tree for some minutes, considering the situation. He lowered and raised his eyes, not moving his head, looking first at the fence, then up at the animal, calculating whether it would or would not fall into his or his neighbor’s yard,. He would be late for work but he wasn’t thinking about work. He took one easy step back inside his room, and grasped the Big Kat which was leaning against the bookcase, just inside the door. As he lifted it, he felt the heaviness of the weapon. With practiced sureness he cocked, loaded a red tip and locked the Big Kat, then slowly raised the gun. He put his hand against the cool aluminum sliding glass door frame and rested the composite stock of the pellet rifle in the u of his thumb and pressed the butt against his shoulder. He aimed the weapon, closed his left eye and looked through the scope with his right. There was a glare from the sun in the east, which slightly obscured his view, but he could see the image of squirrel 35 chewing, looking back at him. It was doable. He could feel adrenaline begin to tingle in his veins. His brain began to warm and squirm as his mind flashed back to the soft parade of squirrels he had previously killed; relatives of this one, no doubt. Suddenly, 35 genuflected and turned sideways, presenting a perfect silhouette. George was thinking fast now. He only had seconds. A head shot would drop the squirrel straight down just on his neighbor’s side of the fence, so he decided to shoot squirrel 35 in the body, thereby bequeathing it enough life to scurry through the branches and out of his neighbor’s yard. He had seen this happen many times, when misplaced long shots resulted in wounded squirrels. He opened his left eye, and then looked over the top of the scope at the squirrel, relishing the thought of shooting this squirrel. He harbored an atavistic need to pull the trigger which was akin to a teenager’s who, when looking closely in the mirror at an angry pimple, fingers on face, pointing, ready, knowing full well that the act would leave a permanent pock mark. He was incapable of stopping it; having a primal yearning for the exquisite pain that only killing could satiate. He could feel his heart rate quicken a bit as his breathing became shallower and rapid; utilizing only his less evolved reptilian brainstem. He ceased rational thought. He hesitated, closed his left eye and put the crosshairs on the body. “This is the end,” he whispered, then pulled the trigger. THONK, the Big Kat coughed out a red tip, striking squirrel 35 in the side, slightly anterior to midline. The animal immediately fell straight down into the neighbor’s yard, THUD, dead and irretrievable.
First, no entity can ‘buy back’ something it never owned or sold.
Next, ‘close the gun show loophole’ means ending all private sales or transfers. ALL gun sales/transfers would have to go through the federal data collection portal, aka NICS.
Third, who decides who is ‘mentally ill’?
Fourth, since self preservation is the grand-daddy of civil rights, and self preservation depends on availability of the most effective tools of self preservation, each and every opponent of possession and use of personal arms is naught but an ANTI CIVIL RIGHTS weasel.
Next case…
The problem isn’t gun control laws (or the perceived lack thereof), the problem is HIPPA! Suicides and deadly violence from children as young as eight years old, all diagnosed with a mental disorder of some type and all on Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, have become more common. Being ill and medicated is of course not a crime, but HIPAA laws protecting patient information prevent any flags from coming up when someone purchases a gun.
We hear again and again (most recently, after Newtown), “how could anyone do this?” The answer is simple; no one in their right mind can do this. The data linking SSRIs to violence is indisputable, and the law is already in place which clearly prohibits the sale of firearms to those not mentally stable enough to own firearms. We simply have no means by which to enforce it under current patient privacy laws.
Silent Archer and tired dog,
Thanks for commenting. I’ll agree that the mentally ill are not always diagnosed. Therein lies the rub, to wit:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
Hamlet is reflecting on the possibility of suicide and ways the simplicity of ending it all then comes to the realization that no one knows what happens when we die with the line “to sleep: perchance to dream: Ay, there’s the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come.” It is at this point Hamlet realizes there is a downside or a catch to suicide.
If someone is willing to take his own life, he is probably willing to take another person’s life; further, if someone is willing to take another life he is probably willing to suffer the consequences.
“If someone is willing to take his own life, he is probably willing to take another person’s life;”
That does not ring true at all.
Bob 42
If someone is willing to take the life of another, with a gun and not in self defense, is he mentally ill? I’m not asking about military service.
No, I don’t think that a mental illness is a required aspect of a murderer. My point is that the vast majority of people who are suicidal intend to kill themselves, not others.
you’re probably right. Many undiagnosed mentally ill people have access to guns.