Guns, guns and guns!

What is it about our American cousins and their deadly obsession with firearms?  The right to bear arms is of course a legal right within the US but I struggle with the attitude of many of these citizens toward anyone suggesting a connection between gun killings and the amount and type of firearms legally available and of course currently in circulation.

I have read that there are more guns in the united states than there are citizens, some 300,000,000 (three hundred million!) weapons.  That is weapons; handguns, automatic handguns, revolvers, hunting rifles, assault rifles, shotguns, machine guns and goodness knows what else, all in the hands of ordinary people.  People running the corner store, gas station, library, hotdog stand and in handbags, trouser pockets, shoulder holsters, everywhere. People involved in car accidents, road rage, students pissed off with their teachers, anyone and everyone.

Imagine for a moment if gun law was as relaxed in Europe as it is in the good old USA.......the Russian football fans might have opened fire with their AK47's in reply to the English fans culturally obscene chants.

I also read somewhere of a US senator, and no doubt an NRA supporter from down south who said had everyone at the nightclub in Orlando been armed then they might have been able to protect themselves......WHAT?   Surely had guns been unobtainable in the first place then maybe nobody might have died?     The type of weapon plays a major part in all this.

Omar Matin used a legally held automatic assault rifle designed to cause as much damage as quickly as possible. Im not sure of the figures eg bullets per minute but something akin to having ten chainsaws on twenty foot extended arms wading into a crowded room.....no chance of escape.

Makes Eddie Scissorhands seem like a bit of a pussy.

Why would anybody need such an obscene piece of kit?

So the question must be something like why?   Why do you need these awesome weapons to conduct yourself in everyday life?   And what do your children learn from this? 

Remember some months back, in the US of course, the story of a loving mother who took her 3 year old daughter for some "gun training"?  The poor child was so frightened by the first round she let off from the automatic handgun, she spun around and put the next one through her instructors temple. But thats OK, we need our guns, we love our guns we must have them at all cost!

Mr Trump has been very quick to denounce the horrific events in Florida, he also utilised the situation by announcing should he, and I have no doubt he will become the next president of the United States, he will of course introduce new gun control law.  What? Compulsory firearm training for all high school children?  Cheap and hurtful promises to catch votes.

I feel very strongly about the gun situation in America, not because at the moment I am less than 20 miles from the border. Not because I feel if Mr Trump steps onto the presidential podium as a full supporter of private gun ownership, what will be his take on nuclear devices as weapons?

I just think they have missed something about the value of life.

I feel there is no short term solution to this problem other than the rules of the wild wild west will carry on until all gun toting Americans are dead or that maybe one day someone will realise the gravity of all this and will then ask the same question, why?

From my childhood I remember all the popular TV shows, mostly American where a scene is played out until it is always resolved by someone getting shot.    And today anyone can play a computer game where you are in charge of any weapon you choose to go on a killing rampage.  

It kind of normalises killing by gunfire.

I do actually know a little of what I talk about, whilst a Metropolitan police officer I spent quite a few years being armed on a daily basis not with just a handgun but with a machine gun as well.  Been there, done that!

Somewhere not so deep in my an ancient brain, is the thought that a very diluted Darwinian theory might be playing out here. Give them enough rope etc.

There we are, said my bit. Oh and by the way, since the murders in Orlando, there have been 93 illegal gun killings in the USA. Not bad for just a few days eh?