How to get shot first

With all the debate going on right now about gun control and the merits of what the 2nd amendment means and so on, I’d like to point out some fatal logic on the part of some of the pro gun crowd.  Now, before I dig to deep it’s best to get this on record right now.  I am pro gun ownership, support the 2nd amendment and believe that the government should fear its people, not the other way around.

The 1st statement:  We should arm the teachers/workers/previously unarmed civilians to protect themselves against this tragedy!

What that really means- You want to put a bunch of guns into untrained hands so that when a crisis occurs a bunch of armed people with no training can add to the chaos?  Real bullets go through walls and kill people.  How much time and training will be spent on arming these workers?  How about combat response tactics so they know what to do in situations like this?  Knee jerk response at best.

The 2nd statement- People should carry their guns at work on their hip so these criminals know better than to mess with us.

What that really means- Congratulations, you just made yourself the 1st target!  You know what the difference between most of these tragedies and your typical robbery or assault?  Planning, sometimes weeks or months of it.  The people that committed these atrocities spent a lot of time planning what they were going to do and how they were going to do it.  They had inside information of how things worked at the locations they chose.  That’s why there were more victims and why they were successful in the first place.  You want to be effective with a firearm?  Keep it concealed and shut the fuck up about it until you need it.

The 3rd statement- Israel/Switzerland/another country other than the U.S. has all their teachers/citizens/etc armed!

What that really means- You’ve just been drafted!  Military service is compulsory, not optional.  Switzerland so that they don’t have to have a large standing army and because nobody wants to invade them anyway.  Israel because they are a tiny nation under siege by people much bigger than they are.  Paranoia is a virtue in Israel and they have become very good at it.  Don’t compare their circumstances to the U.S., our entire country is based around an entirely different philosophy.  Remember the Draft?  That short term law that compelled you to service if Uncle Sam deemed it necessary?  Boy was that popular!  Now imagine it’s no longer sexist and everybody has to join up for 1-4 years.

I don’t have the answers to the state of gun control in the U.S, it’s a difficult topic.  What I do know is the situation isn’t being helped by the assholes on either side of the issue.  Honest discussion with intelligent debate needs to happen so we can formulate policy.  Gun control doesn’t work for the criminals, they’re already committing crimes.  Adding one more charge is just paperwork.  Denying the people their 2nd Amendment right won’t work, it is a necessary piece of our framework.  The technology exists to make guns safer, but it will make them far more expensive and does nothing to solve the issue of the hundreds of millions of guns already out there.  Whatever the case, stop the damn rhetoric, sit down, and become part of the solution.

By Dan Granot

I chose the Shorter Whitman because of his work, "Song of Myself" and because of my self-deprecating sense of humor. I am under no illusion that I can write successful essays or poetry, but I have been known to write them anyway.

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