January 21

Hot heads with guns make poor decisions, people die

Letter to the Editor

The Second Amendment's words, "a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," clearly indicates the idea was to regulate guns and limit ownership.

A deluded few believe that the amendment provides for individual gun ownership to keep government in check. Those few should be reminded, about the 1993 fate of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, to fully understand the imbalance of power between themselves and the government.

The second part of the amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," has led many to inaccurately believe everyone has the unregulated right to own a gun.

Persons seeking gun ownership need to know that logically, owning a gun does not make a person safer. An ordinary person intending to own a gun for self-defense will need the training, skills and fire power of a soldier or the police.

In a frightening confrontation, we humans are driven by the innate survival instinct with the normal urge to flee, rather than fight. The inability to overcoming that instinct coupled with the element of surprise when seconds count, is what gets an ordinary unskilled gun owner killed in a confrontation.

A renewed arms race in our society has begun, likely caused less by fear of regulation than by propaganda spread by the National Rifle Association, M.D. Harmon and others of that ilk.

Gun ownership makes the owner, their family, friends and all the rest of us less safe. Gun violence derives more often from the false sense of power gun owners feel in a confrontation. Poor decisions are made by hot heads with guns and people die.

As gun ownership proliferates, more and more people will need guns to balance the power. See where the NRA wants this to go?

 

Jim Chiddix

Waterville

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