GUNS
2013
Guns have
one purpose.
There was a
time when I, as a young naval person stood deck watches in port on a small
oceanographic ship. The Officer of the Deck normally carried a gun as part of
his badge of office. But the rule was never to remove the gun from its very
secure holster unless you intend to load it and use it. In my three years of
experience it was never removed from the holster by anyone on duty.
Several
months back I had an occasion to stay overnight in Riverside, California. The
morning paper announced that the previous day two young men had been killed,
shot dead , by two different police officers
in two different parts of town. Both young men had been driving and each
had been stopped for a traffic violation. Each got out of his car carrying a
gun. Each police officer, well trained, aware of well defined assumptions about
guns and their only purpose, did his duty. Two armed fools died, killed by
their own guns.
Carrying
guns does not provide safety or security. It opens a large new realm of
hazards, insecurity, that few gun owners have given much thought to at all and
the gun culture, gun clubs, and gun salesmen all want to deny. Further it
invites the more foolish to treat guns as toys and indulge in play that can easily
turn accidentally lethal, if not criminally so.
And there
are guns that should not be allowed at all. Automatic weapons have no use in
hunting. Anti-aircraft weapons have no business in public circulation.
Cars have
the same lethal potential. We register them and license their drivers. We also
tax both. We regulate the quality and
safety of cars and the competence of drivers. There is every reason to do the
same with guns and those who own or use them for any purpose. And the
ammunition can be labeled as well, each projectile and shell can be marked
indelibly so there is no question as to ownership. These innovations are not
intrusions on freedom. They are an obviously necessary step in protecting the
freedom of all, the health and safety of the public. Such regulations are an
essential part of civilization, a reason for establishing and maintaining
competence in governments.
The size of
the gun lobby and the magnitude of the economic interests in guns only confirm
the propriety of putting the entire industry under a clear and fair regulatory
regime immediately. We must do that to avoid the obvious dangers we all face
from an unregulated industry that is poisoning society as surely as any other
unregulated industrial poison that can circulate in the biosphere and corrupt
all life.
G.M.Woodwell.
Woods
Hole. Massachusetts
January 10, 2013
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