BANG BANG YOU'RE DEAD
A nice uplifting story for our Monday morning – you know I’m being facetious, don’t you? Over the weekend a man in Kentucky shot and killed five people, followed by himself; why did he do this? Because apparently his wife with whom he shared his trailer did not cook his eggs the way he wanted them cooked. Yes, that’s right. His eggs were scrambled instead of fried. His answer to this was to grab his shotgun, shoot her, their daughter, and then go on a rampage in the trailer park and shoot three of his neighbors. This is precisely why I don’t speak to my neighbors. If I want a cup of sugar I go to the store.
Seriously, are people this angry? And how are we not more worried about the state of the human race when people are going Rambo on their neighborhood over dairy products? Okay, fine, the man clearly had deep-seated issues that had nothing to do with his sunny side up yokes, but it’s hard to imagine that the trigger (pun intended of course) of this horrific event was something so mundane. Then again, perhaps it always is.
What is even sadder is that in the lovely country where I’m from, one is allowed to have a rifle sitting in their trailer that they can freely use for human target practice. Yes, yes, calm down, right to bear arms, second amendment, blab la bla. Trust me, I’m all about taking the constitution very seriously, but guns are one of those things it is next to impossible for me to see a positive side to. For starters, they are used to kill people, not to mention aid in a variety of violent crimes; they are used to kill animals; they kill thousands of kids a year in accidental shootings in the home…and moreover, any nut job can go and get one. In some states, the accessibility to buying a gun is downright frightening. In fact it’s harder to buy porn and cigarettes. The problem is, these days I do not have enough faith in my common man for everyone to carry a gun. I want severe and profound psychological testing before someone is given a firearm. It seems like a no brainer, no? Finding out of the person has a propensity for, I don’t know…killing (!!) before they are handed a gun seems like a good reason not to give them one.
Australia and Britain do not have guns, certainly not like we do. The police do not carry guns (unless they are part of the armed response unit) and the news is not rife with shootings on a weekly basis like in America. When I tell people who are not from here that the police do not carry guns, they are astounded. They always ask – as I did when I first heard this – what do they do when they’re trying to apprehend a criminal?? As far as I can tell, as the criminal most likely does not have a gun, a baton and taser probably does the job. I know, amazingly civilized, right? “Stop, or I’ll club you like a seal!”
It is nothing like my fair country where criminals practically carry uzis (actually, I think they really do) and the police have to go into heavily crime-ridden areas with armored tanks and rocket launchers. And this is because we believe so heavily in the right to carry guns; cause apparently there is such a need to protect ourselves from revolutions. At this point, I’m more scared of my neighbor’s wife serving her husband waffles when he wanted pancakes.