Where Are Our Priorities?

“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
~Dalai Lama XIV~

I'm as sick as anyone of all the pro and con arguments about gun control.  Don't get me wrong - I've indulged in my fair share of those comments and arguments and probably will continue to do so but I'm still sick of hearing about it.  It's like a traffic accident that you can't stop yourself from rubbernecking to see.

What I don't get is why tragedies such as mass shootings are always turned into debates on gun control.  Seriously, why is the problem that American citizens want to own guns without any hassle rather than the fact that a small few in our society have such little regard for human life?  Why is there such an uproar over guns when the focus should be on the crime and not the method?  There is something inherently wrong when the why takes a backseat to the how.

Do we really think that someone bent on killing as many people as they can will stop just because we remove one method from them?  Moreover, does anyone really believe that an individual who's determined to kill won't because the method is illegal?

When Jim Jones committed mass murders in Guyana, he did it with poison.  Timothy McVeigh did it with a truck containing a bomb.  Of course we all remember the Taliban doing it with airplanes.  There are other less well known mass murders as well.  Eighty-two victims died in a fire that was deliberately set in a social club in New York in March of 1990.

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but isn't MURDER a bigger crime than owning a gun ever will be?  Can't you just see a mass murderer-to-be arguing with himself? The conversation would probably go something like this:  "I gotta kill all these people but how? I can't use a gun because they're illegal.  Maybe I should set a fire?  No, they might survive that.  A bomb would work but that's a lot of work. Man, I wish guns weren't illegal!"  Yeah, right.  If they were obeying laws, they wouldn't be commiting murder, would they?

Furthermore, why is it that it's not okay for me to own a gun yet I am expected to be okay with my tax dollars going to pay for abortions - which I do NOT support?  My gun wasn't purchased with tax dollars so why is it anyone's business but mine what I own?

And I am also sick to death of some people in other countries who complain about the guns in America.  If you don't live here, don't vote here, aren't a citizen and aren't planning to come here, then shut the hell up.  It's none of your damn business.

I am an American and, for now at least, I have the right to own a gun.  What I DON'T have the right to do, however, is to use that gun to kill innocent people.  Shouldn't that be the real issue?