OK, so I’m not usually the ranting type but I’m pissed. I have a perfectly good kid as a patient, not brilliant, not a star athelete, but a nice kid and wonder of wonders this 30ish jewish female doctor has some sort of rapport with this 18 year old African-American male. In fact the first time I saw him he bid me farewell with the apparently hip term “Word” to which I graciously responded “Huh?”
So anyway, I feel like I may actually be connecting a little with him and I turn on the television to hear on the news that he just got accidentally shot in the head and killed by a 15 year old friend when they were goofing around with a gun.
Damn! I think this bugs me so much because this kid was so normal, so typical and it just seems so routine to hear this crap on the news that one friend even asked me why it was on television. I just wish all these idiotic gun owners would lock up their guns or better yet get rid of them entirely, and I wish that teenage boys were not so damn stupid!
(I know-a pathetic rant, but I feel better now-not!)
Yes, by all means, idiots should not have guns. But if you are tarring allgun owners with the terms “idiotic” and “irresponsible,” then I will invite you to kiss my gun-owning ass.
I don’t care how upset you may be–stereotyping in that manner is horseshit, regardless of what group you are trying to apply it to.
Obviously you don’t care, you’re more pissed off at her little (very little) outburst on irresponsible gun ownership than the fact that a kid got shot in the head.
Yeah, it sure sucks that a kid got shot in the head. But the second you use that to justify punishing ME, you’re gonna get a talkin’-to.
I am sorry to hear that somebody lost their life due to a very preventable tragedy. Such incidents happen far too often, every day. But despite the emotional loss and pain, despite your immediate desire to rid the world of the perceived evil, please take a nice, calming breath and realize that this was NOT the fault of guns, nor guns owners, nor gun makers, nor gun anything-else-ers. This was the fault of a 15-year-old boy who, horribly, messed up.
Cry over the loss. Have sorrow that people die. But don’t allow your emotions to drum up hatred against those who have committed no wrong.
psychobunny - you could always come and live in the UK. I nearly posted to the thread how much gun control do you want a few days ago, but decided not to since I would probably have got horribly embroiled. You guys have it as your inalienable constitutional right, and that’s fine by me - I’m not going to comment on the US. The answer I would have posted to that question would have been ‘As much as I can get, and just a little bit more, please. Oh, and big-ass hunting knives? Same.’
I’m encouraged by your good aim. There have been, comparitively few bombs on the mainland UK, and few (that I can recall) since the NI ceasefire (years). There have been a small number of atrocious incidents in NI (Omagh - attributed IIRC to a breakaway IRA faction). Understand that horrendous though these are, in terms of numbers they pale into insignificance in comparison with gun-related homicide or accident in the US (or even Oklahoma, come to that).
I think you’ll find that the first mention of the ‘b’ word was by you.
Of course they do. And one is one too many. But comparatively, even before the more restrictive gun laws were enacted after Dunblane, estimates put England & Wales as eight times less likely to be the victim of a gun-related homicide. And that didn’t include gun-accident stats.
The Pan-Am flight over Lockerbie had a larger death toll than Oklahoma City. A breakdown of security, from what I understand. Get real, dude.
The IRA would have been crushed, CRUSHED, I tell you in the US after all these years with their history. Is the British Home Office so inept they can’t deal with these guys?
Please explain how they have been able to inflict so much terror over your country for years…
Nothing But Net - I may be wrong, but I believe they haven’t exactly been hindered by the massive cash support they have received from the US during their war against the English. While it may be standard UK and US practice to arm your opponents before blowing the shit out of them, it might have been easier for the government to deal with the threat if the US hadn’t been helping them get weapons and supplies. Just a thought.
You know, one day I’ll see a thread that mentions guns that doesn’t disintegrate into a formulaic progression into increasingly insulting and cliched comments.
