12/12/4

A few days ago, "Dime Bag" Darrell, former guitarist for Pantera, was shot and killed at a club in Ohio. Some guy appearently jumped onstage and shot him multiple times at close range, killed three others, and was about to kill his hostage when a responding police officer shot and killed him.

A post on a message board said it "sucked" and was "unbelievable". However, in our current culture, what sucks is that it isn't all that unbelievable. We live in a society of sensationalized news teasing our paranoia until the next commercial break, ultra-violent films and video games making millions, gansta rappers sporting bullet wounds as fashion, and a government that wages an unprovoked war to preempt the use of non-existant weapons.

So I suppose this is my gun control rant. I'm a pacifist by nature. Not in the shiny-happy, vegatarian tree-hugger sense. I just think I'm intelligent enough to talk my way out of the need for force in most situations. I do not and never will own a gun. If someone points a gun at me, I'll do what they say, and most likely that means they won't shoot me. But if I point a gun back, I've just given them a reason to pull the trigger.

The argument is always something like: "Gun control doesn't keep guns out of the hands of criminals, it keeps them out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. A criminal will find a way to get a gun no matter what." True enough, in a very broad sense, but what that pathetic and stupid argument is really saying is this: "If you can't solve the whole problem, it isn't worth trying to solve part of it, so don't do anything at all."

I fully concede that a career criminal, drug cartel member or Mafia hit-man will get his hands on whatever weapon he so desires. But these are generally the guys who aren't going to shoot me. They tend to shoot each other or law-enforcement officers, who wield guns, thus making themselves targets. These types would point a gun at me in order to get me to do what they want, with no intent or need to actually harm me. It's a bargaining tool.

But gun control laws do at least partially keep guns out of the hands of everyday wackos, estranged wife-beating husbands, and various petty criminals. These are the people on the street with the lack of sense or even temper who are likely to harm or kill someone. These people would be less likely to get through background checks and three-day waiting periods. Then they wouldn't be able to sneak a gun into a nightclub and brutally murder a guitarist and three people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Honestly, do these deer-hunting sportsmen really need laser-scopes and semi-automatics?

I remember Ted Nugent on "Politically Incorrect" years ago (man, do I miss that show) spouting supportive statistics. In Switzerland, the head of every household is required to own and keep in their home an automatic weapon, and must be trained in it's proper usage. The crime rate there is extremely low because of it. This is a good thing? What you're really saying is that we should live in a culture based on fear. Not the comfort that your fellow-man is generally good, and the few bad seeds may wrinkle the fabric, but life should be enjoyed. No. We should always be looking over our shoulders anxiously, knowing that the evil is out there. With so much focus on protecting our precious lives, we turn those lives into a miserable, paranoid existance.

We're all gonna die, people. Welcome to reality and mortality. So live. Live now. Whether I die ancient and decrepit in my sleep, or get gunned down tomorrow, at least I was living my life until then.

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