Gun Control: A Conversation with a Friend (5)

This series of posts is a conversation about gun control between me and an American friend living in Canada. Today's, the last one, comes from my friend Jeremy. The first, second, third, and fourth posts are here.

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Thanks, Cory.

One of the things that troubles me so much about the proliferation of guns is that even people that you might ordinarily consider the "good" guys have bad days, or more likely moments of bad judgment. Just a couple examples from Florida recently: the former cop in the movie theater who killed the young father sitting front if him for texting . . . during the previews. Here was a guy who had trained and practiced for his entire career who had a serious lapse in judgment. And, unlike a lapse if judgment when you're playing baseball, when guns are involved there is a loss of human life. The other case was the guy at the gas station who confronted some kids about their music, thought he saw something, and unloaded a weapon into the car. No gun was found in the car, but more people were dead. I think it's just too great a responsibility to expect people to make life-and-death decisions in a split second depending on if they "feel threatened." In the home is a different matter: except if someone believes in Santa, I can't think of a good reason that someone would be trying to break into another person's house. The idea of keeping the military in check is one that doesn't really resonate with me (maybe I need to watch Red Dawn). I always assumed that if the military really felt like it, they possess weapons so far beyond what the average person can acquire that resistance would be an exercise in futility. A friend of mine who is at Penn State worked on some naval projects a few years back and told me that if I knew what the military had, I would be freaked out. If it ever got to that point, I think we'd all be up the proverbial creek.

One last thing: we do have a real life example of a one-time gun-owning society that went cold turkey. Australia severely restricted gun ownership and require everyone to register their guns after what I think was a school shooting in the 90's. The only result has been that Aussie kids don't have to practice lockdown drills. I know that would never fly here, but I wonder if the death toll will ever change people's minds.

Jer