“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”..yes we’ve all heard this statement before. For those of you who aren’t clever enough to distinguish between killing in self-defense and killing in cold blood, let me tell you, they are one and the same.
I do not want to discuss the moral issues surrounding this debate as it is plainly obvious that this has no bearing on the minds of the pro-gun activists.
I live in Australia, a country that, like every other, struggles with social misfits. Guns are an up and coming culture, one which I believe is totally influenced by movies portraying the gunwelder as a cool, not to be messed with, hero.
The problem here is not as prevalent as in most other countries. I am almost 30 years old and I have not seen or know of anybody that owns a gun. But I do know people who have been victims of crime.
I read an article the other day about how a ten year old girl could not unlock the cupboard where the gun was kept when an intruder was in the house. She escaped, leaving her two younger siblings to their untimely deaths. Yes this is an unfortunate thing indeed, but she was given no other option but to look for that gun. She was reared at a young age by her parents the “rules of gun etiquette” I do not know the entire situation for I was not there, but I’m sure it took quite sometime for her to go into the other room to find out the gun was locked up and then escape. If there was a means of escape I know that I would have taken my siblings and used that as my first option.
Look my point is if there is a gun in the house there is no going back, the theory of kill or be killed takes precedent over getting the hell out of there and calling the police. Other options would be to install other security measures, like alarms, bars on windows etc. or perhaps always having an able-bodied adult in the house with kids, security dogs and I’m sure there are other fancy devices out there that I don’t know about that can protect your family.
Encouraging the use of guns for self- defense is also encouraging criminals to use them.