Guns anyone ?

Over the last few years, every now and then a news piece comes along that does not have Iraq or George W. Bush on the headline. The sad fact is that such news has almost always been associated with a severe tragedy, either in terms of numbers and magnitude like the asian Tsunami or the utter hopelessness and despair in the situation like todays University Shooting.

This steals the joy of Iraq and GWB not being the number one headline day after day and instead plunges you to new depths of sadness. On an average we are losing tens of lives (American) and probably hundreds of lives every day in the middle east. These are guys who signed up to fight for what they believe in, or people who believe in following orders. People who wake up knowing that they might face a bullet that day. If wartime casualties are depressing, University kids attending class dying no reason, is simply gut wrenching.

During my India trip, an anonymous blogger wanted me to take responsibility for the Gun Culture in the US. I wrote a strongly worded post(the only post I think I have retracted) saying "not every american owns a gun, or at least no one I know or interact with goes around with a gun!". I also stated that I vote against this gun culture every chance I get. In retrospect, this is a losing battle. Lets face it. I cannot do diddly squat to keep guns away from the killers.

Apparently guns don't kill people. People kill people. (This, according to the National Rifle Association, which is usually credited with keeping up the access to guns active in the USA). My interpretation? People with guns kill people. Somehow the guns always have a way of finding themselves in the hands of these people who have an intent to kill! This seems to be one of those things where you say "Duh ?!". What is the probability that a person who owns a gun intends to use it? Why would that person own a gun in the first place?

At the end of the day, you cannot argue with these guys because there could be this one bloke who holds on to the gun with the intent of self defense. This is like saying we should take all candy away from all kids because they cause cavities. In the process we could be killing some kid who has low blood sugar and relies on the candy for his very life. Better have a thousand kids with cavities and have a pediatric dentistry business flourish and improve the economy than have that one kid die. I do accept that logic, in spite of all the sarcasm.

In a country plagued by teenage drinking, highly stressed out kids, peer pressure that runs rampant, high instance of drug use in college, etc., the last thing you need is for college going kids to have access to guns! So many people smoke and kill themselves and others in the process of smoking, knowing that there is a warning label on the box of Cigarettes. So many drink and drive. So many make accessing guns easy for others who plan to take innocent lives. How do you make these people responsible for their actions? Sometimes I just think "it is just the luck of the draw" and keep going and at other times I feel :
angry at what happened which
instantly changes to frustration by the fact that the anger does not help, then
panic that I am going to be raising my kids here and finally
console myself saying "nah. this won't happen where I live!" and fear takes over again saying "what if I am wrong ?".

If a guy who is so far removed from the events today at the University can go through this rollercoaster of emotions, I just cannot imagine what the people at V.Tech must be going through. My heart goes out to all those affected by what happened today.

I really wish there will be a news story tomorrow with GWB in the headlines where he does something about people shooting people!


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