I don’t understand.

I don’t get it.

It makes no sense to me.

How did our culture, our community, our society, our beloved country, come to believe that all guns are good, and that all people should be allowed to shoot them at will? How did we ever come to accept the bizarre idea that the more armed we are, the safer we will all be?

I just don’t understand.

I’ve written about this before.  I’ve written about the fact that I live in a rural community where many people hunt for deer, turkey, ducks, even black bears.  Most of the hunters I know eat the meat that they procure.  I get that.  I admire it. I even enjoy it when I get a chance to eat some fresh turkey or deer.

Guns for hunting= makes sense to me!

And I even understand those people who tell me that they like to shoot guns “for sport”.  Ok.  It doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun to me, but neither does bungee jumping or playing football or catching catfish with my bare hands.  If people want to go to a legally registered gun range or gun club and shoot a weapon at a non-living target, go for it.

Whatevah.  To each his own, right?

As long as “each” is an adult who understands the repercussions of his actions, that is.  As long as “each” shooter is old enough to give informed consent.

I mean, we live in a society that tells 19 year old men and women that they are not yet adult enough to handle a beer. We tell everyone under the age of 18 that he or she is not yet mature enough to consent to sexual activity, not matter how deeply in love he or she may feel. We tell them that they are not yet old enough to give informed consent to actions that we deem to be detrimental to their health.

So why, for the love of all that is good and sacred, do we happily put absolutely horrifically lethal weapons into the hands of our 8 and 9 year old children?  WHY?

I teach ten and eleven year olds.  I know very very well how illogical and how impulsive and how fragile those young people are this very tender age.

Anyone who believes that it is morally right to put an Uzi into the hands of such a little being is a self-serving idiot in complete denial about the purpose of such a terrible, lethal machine.

I am willing to bet that the parents who take their prepubescent children to the gun range and hand them an automatic weapon are also parents who make sure that the very same children have all of their shots.  I bet that those children rode in car seats and booster seats until they reached the proper weight to ride safely with only a seat belt.

I am willing to go out on a limb and wager that the majority of those kids wear bike helmets when they ride around the block.

So what the hell gives with the damn guns?

How did this happen?

How did well allow the NRA to convince us that it is “fun” to let a little girl put down her dolls and pick up a deadly weapon?

I don’t blame that poor little child, whose life is now irreparably broken. I don’t even blame her parents. I blame every single member of the US government who took a dollar (or a million) from the NRA and who looked the other way as more and more weapons were allowed to flood our streets.

And I blame every single responsible adult who doesn’t stand up right now and say that enough is enough.

If we really want to tell the world that we love our children, we need to outlaw these weapons of mass destruction. Or at least take them out of reach until the age of informed consent.