The Named Ones

Written in an angered and sleep-deprived state. Don't read if you are offended by the truth.

In Australia there was once a time where you could kill 11 people a second for under $1,000. From newspaper advertisement, to mass murderer. Just a pull of the trigger and a turn of the feet, and that crowded tourist location could become the resting place of more than those who were originally mentioned by its tour guides.

If only all of those people had turned up with their pistols and semi-automatic rifles when visiting Port Arthur with their families. Maybe then Martin wouldn’t have been able to kill as many people as he did, because as every dreaming lunatic would know, they would have been ready to whip out their guns, and start firing back counter-shots with utmost precision.

Everyone’s an ammunitions expert after all.

I can somewhat grasp a vision of this fantasy world they have in mind. As though you’re watching some corny action film filled with good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains. Where every family is ready to have their gun-trained mother or father pull the rifle from their shoulder, (the one they’ve been carrying through all the gift shops, supermarkets and daycare centers) and fire at any potential threat to their wellbeing. Don’t forget that their gun would have to be pre-loaded, because if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves if a crazy gunman came out of nowhere. (Unless they’re a family of 12 or more, at least that’d give them a second or two to get their weapon ready.)

Massacres don’t happen because people are unarmed. You are abnormally delusional if you think that the reason so many die from gun violence is because not enough people are holding guns.

In the real world, interacting with people who are ‘out-of-it’ is already a disturbing occurrence. Whether they’re walking along the side of the road drunk, and potentially drugged, or sitting in the pub, swearing their head off at the cashier for refusing to serve them more alcohol. These situations wouldn’t at all be aided by weapons, in any shape or form, instead, this desire to be ‘constantly on alert’ with a firearm is just the foundation of its own paranoia.

Currently, that man would just be escorted from the premises, by nearby security, or police if necessary. It happens every Friday night here in Australia, and in much larger numbers than the one drunk man in my example. Add guns to this situation, and it becomes needlessly endowed with unnecessary friction. Suddenly, we have the potential for life threatening taunts to security guards, opposed to a drunken ‘lemme get another f***kin’ drink.’ Let’s not forget, all-guns are all-good in this hypothetical – these guys could be carrying semiautomatic weapons. Sure, maybe you can’t aim when you’re drunk… but at 700 rounds per minute, you get a bit of leniency in that department.

Perhaps my example comes across as an absurd clasping of straws, but the fact of the matter is – the situations you prepare yourself for, where the murderer enters your house and you’re ready in the dark with a shotgun in hand: they’re not your typical occurrence. You’re preparing for an unlikely event, and in doing so, making such events more likely. It’s circular-reasoning in action.

“I need guns, to protect myself from other people with guns,”

In the same way that illicit drugs are regulated to minimize their impact on society, gun regulation would save lives, despite only making it harder, not impossible, to obtain a gun.
This has already worked already in Australia, and I know, that you’ve heard this a hundred times already if you’re a gun-supporter, and you’re sick of it. But I’m equally sick of hearing the misaligned priorities when yet another report of a massacre hits, and all the pro-gun arguments can spit out is the colossal waste of a human thought:
“If they had guns to defend themselves, this wouldn’t have happened.”

35 lives, 28 lives, 7 lives. Whatever the statistic.
These were people, and increasingly, children.

It’s still bloody happening, and it’s going to continue to happen if nothing changes.

Often, people trying to refute the success of Australia’s gun regulation will argue that despite the heavy regulation of firearms, hostages were held at gunpoint by a man with an unlicensed shotgun in Sydney late last year. A single event, compared to the months of school massacres coming in the news from abroad? A sign of desperation to confirm a flawed bias.

I said before. Yes, these events happen. Where there’s good, there’s bad.

But adding guns to society just increases the occurrence of these events.

Are there still guns in Australia? Yes.

But, just as with illicit drugs, regulation has minimized the impact they have on society.
When that minimization equates to saving over 30,000 lives a year, I consider that a minimization worth bloody taking.