The mass shooting in Orlando Florida, where 49 innocent human beings lost their lives and 53 were injured was the worst mass shooting in America’s long history of shooting human beings.  It is not relevant if these people were innocent young children in school or innocent members of the LGBT community in a nightclub, none of them deserved to have their lives shortened this way.  The mass killer used semi-automatic weapons purchased legally because our government is incapable of the most rudimentary legislation that would control the sale of weapons of massive murdering power and our Supreme Court is incapable of properly interpreting the 2nd Amendment (The Right to Bear Arms – Did Founding Fathers Intend it for All?).  I have written a number of articles on this topic.

No nation has in their constitution the right of all to bear arms including ours.  But our Supreme Court, under political pressure from NRA lawyers and lobbyist, has decided that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” is not the only relevant reason for allowing people the right to bear arms.  It has also morphed into an inviolable right of all people making the 2nd Amendment ambiguous.  As a consequence 32,000 human lives are ended by bullets every year and many more seriously and permanently injured.  Granted 60% are suicides but how many suicides would not have happened had the convenience of a quick and painless death not been so readily available.  Then there are the remaining roughly 40%.  Police shootings account for less than 400 deaths per year so though there is a lot of press about it and 400 lives is till 400 human beings no longer alive it is only the tip of the iceberg.  Even mass shootings are a small percentage of those killed.

According to the CDC there are about 300,000,000 guns in the US.  That is about one gun per man, woman, and child in this country.  Since most children do not own guns (not so sure about that) that means that gun owners typically have multiple guns. And the number of guns illegally acquired and used in crimes is huge.  Because gun ownership is an inviolable right children not old enough to drink, smoke, drive, join the armed forces, or vote can legally shoot a gun with little to no training because it is technically a right, unlike driving which is a privilege thus requires certification to get a licence.  So a devices whose primary purpose is to kill human beings requires little regulation while another device used primarily to transport people to different places is quite well-regulated.

The premise of the NRA that taking away the right to own guns will open the door to banning them makes as much sense as the premise that taking the right to drive cars away will ban the use of cars.  If gun ownership is managed like car ownership and is a privilege instead of a right safeguards can be put in place to make sure guns are made and used safely and legally.  Simply imagine where auto fatalities and injuries would be today had driving been a right instead of a privilege.  Drivers would not be required to pass a driver’s test and auto makers would not have to improve the safety of cars beyond some rudimentary level and kids would be allowed to drive.  Fatalities would be 2-3 time higher than today.  That is where guns are today in relation to car fatalities and injuries.  With proper regulation of ownership and training to use these lethal weapons of mass killings properly and legally we might reduce gun shootings of human beings by 2-3 times as we have cars.  We wouldn’t eliminate all fatalities but we sure could reduce the chances of you or one of your loved ones from becoming the next victim of gun violence by more than half and getting some of those three million guns off the streets, especially the illegal ones like they did in Australia.  Isn’t that worth at least thinking about in light of the most recent and serious mass shooting at Orlando?  We at least need to start doing something about it after what seems an eternity of doing nothing and is an eternity for those deceased.  When is enough finally really enough?

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