Guns don't kill people

Guns don't kill people. Of course not. Neither do bombs, knives, baseball bats or poison. It's people who kill people. Who can argue with that?

Well, let me try a bit.

While it is true that inanimate objects by themselves are not likely to become animate and go around killing people all by themselves, it should be obvious that if they didn't exist, it would be a lot more difficult for people to kill people. Gosh, if these inanimate objects didn't exist, someone who wanted to kill someone would need to get phisical and kill them with their bare hands. You know, get up close and personal, and maybe risk getting killed by them with their bare hands.

There was a time when I belonged to the NRA. That was when I viewed the NRA as an organization that supports hunting. I dropped my membership when the NRA began campaigning for the death penalty because I didn't see any connection between hunting and the state sponsorhip of killing people. Over the years, it seems to me that the NRA isn't so much about supporting hunters as it is about being a lobbyist for the manufactures of guns and ammo. Make money. Sell as many guns and rounds of ammo as possible to as many people as possible, and wash your hands of any blood spilled.  

You see, if you are a hunter, you have an obligation to learn how to shoot straight and hit your target with one bullet. That being the case, there is absolutely no reason for you to need an automatic or semi-automatic to hit the target. If you need more than one bullet, you should give up hunting because you are incompetent. In addition, if you need many bullets to kill what you are hunting, all those bullets are making a mess of what could have been a good meal or trophy. Get my point?

If the politicians weren't so afraid of the NRA, acting as though the NRA were going to come after them and spray them with bullets, they would ban all automatics and semi-automatics. But no. We have cowards for politicians.

I repeat. No hunter or target shooter has any reason to own an automatic or semi-automatic. The only purpose of those killing instruments is to indiscrimanently kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. They make sense on the battlefield. They make no sense in society.