Multiple Victim Shootings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In recent years the world has been plagued by 'multiple victim shootings' where a man (and it's usually a man) arms himself and guns down total strangers before inevitably committing suicide.

The knee-jerk reaction to these events is to impose more laws (or tighten the ones already in place) in order to reduce the availability of firearms. People that support this often miss the real problems, which often include loneliness, isolation and the stresses of modern life.

If we are ever going to reduce the frequency of these incidents, we need to look at what causes a person to have a mental breakdown rather than the tools they use to do harm.

Perhaps, when these incidents occur, we should move away from the issue of banning guns and instead ask why people behave like this.

Where is all this anger coming from ?

Why, when people become suicidal, do they insist on taking others with them ?

A gun ban may reduce the likelihood of these incidents happening, thereby saving some lives each year, but a person could always obtain a gun illegally if they wanted to.

Whilst it may sound like a good idea, a ban on gun ownership would actually lead to an increase in murders because people would be left defenceless and at the non-existent mercy of criminals, as is the case here in the UK.

Let's look at it from a numbers point of view, instead of an emotional one. Let's imagine for a moment that these incidents were to happen once a year with an average of 15 people being killed each time.

This is, of course, a worse case scenario. That's more than a dozen people tragically losing their lives to shooting sprees each year.

Now compare that figure of 15 deaths per year to the hundreds of lives that could potentially be saved because citizens can defend themselves against street muggers, burglars, rapists, carjackers and other violent street criminals. 

Guns have (and always will) save far more lives than they take; disarming people will never make them safer, it just leaves them more vulnerable.

I don’t think there is any way to stop horrors like this happening, however tough we make the law. Even if people don't have access to guns, there are many other ways of committing mass murder. If someone is sufficiently insane that they want to kill large numbers of people, they will always find a way to do so.

However you choose to look at it, the bottom line is that it's impossible to legislate against acts of insanity.

We also need to consider the very real fact that hundreds of lives are being lost each year in this country because people aren't armed and don't have the means to protect themselves from violent criminals.

A gun ban is effectively taking away someone's property when they have harmed no-one and committed no crime. It is punishing someone for the actions of someone else. It is saying that you cannot trusted and should therefore be controlled and treated like a child.

I will accept the potential risks that come with allowing people to be armed. If I'm sitting in a bar or restaurant when someone comes in, pulls a out a gun and starts shooting people I will accept that as one of the costs of freedom, even if that means that I end up being killed.

My own view is that if we wish to live in a free society, we are going to have to accept that these incidents will occasionally happen. There is always the possibility that an armed citizen present at the scene can stop the attacker but that's all that it is - a possibility.

Life is not risk free and freedoms has costs. The people of the US choose the right to bear arms rather than be subject to the whims of robbers, rapists, burglars and other street trash.

These gun massacres are tragic, but they are a price worth paying to have the ability to stand in defiance against the scum of the earth.