GUNS AND PIT BULLS...

The tragedy in Santa Barbara this last weekend when a young man killed several people, all innocent of any wrong doing toward him in any way, by both knife and gun was just that; a tragedy.  Trying to wrap one’s mind around what led this person to do what he did and making any sense of any of it seems impossible.  Which is all the more reason why everyone needs to take a step back and take the time to reflect on the ‘true’ source of the problem that ended in these unnecessary and tragic killings is/was.

Right now everyone who thinks guns should not exist or be owned by responsible people is jumping on the ‘ban guns’ bus using this tragedy as a perfect example why guns should be more heavily regulated and even some are suggesting that no one in the general public should have guns at all; not even those responsible people who understand what guns are and the potential for disaster using guns. 

There is a LOT of blame going around at the moment and most, if not all of it, seems to be focusing on guns as if any gun at any time could come to life and begin to kill of its own accord free of any human involvement whatsoever.  Once again we Americans, with our very fine tuned knee jerk reaction reflex, are focusing attention and placing blame on an inanimate object or an object that in and of itself is typically harmless until in the hands of a human being.   Once again we forget that logic exists and run in droves to either condemn or defend an inanimate object with tempers flaring and accusations flying.  Once again there is little or no mention of the human being who executed a detailed plan that had no doubt, according to their own words, been brewing for some time in the mind of the human.

This horrendous act was perpetrated by a human being.  This human being thought it through from every angle, apparently according to his own words, and then executed it with calm resolve as if executing a plan to do something totally normal by most human standards.  The mind of the person who did this with such calm resolve obviously was not a mind that operates like the vast majority of people but was a mind that has focused so much energy and intent on his inability to attract women that it became an obsession with him; an obsession that dictated to him, in his mind, that he had to do something about it, that he had to punish others for it.  The young man wrote a 137 page diatribe for crying out loud.  Extremely few of us would ever go to that length even if we were really, really, really pissed and upset about something.  Could it be that the young man who committed this heinous attack on innocents was nothing like most of the rest of us?  Could it be that he was an example of the extreme's that very few of us would go to when felling rejected or disrespected?  Could it be that we have much more to fear from others like him than from the inanimate objects that are their weapon of choice?

This was something well thought out and executed; something that he more than likely thought about most of his waking hours day after day after day.  Was he insane?  Was he mentally ill?  Or was he simply a privileged young man who perhaps had never been shown that disappointment and rejection happens to us all and that we get over it…we move on…we grow from the experience?  At any rate from the sound of what has been revealed so far from his diatribe and the u-tube video he made just prior to carrying out his plan this person would have formulated a plan with or without guns and would have found some way, any way, to exact his revenge on all beautiful young college girls because a few had not found him attractive or date-worthy.  But no one seems to focus on that or even care about it.  No one seems to be looking any further than one of the tools he utilized, he also stabbed his roommates to death but no one seems to care about that, nor do they seem to care about anything but the gun(s) and the way they feel about guns personally.

The gun issue so reminds me of the pit bull issue.  It doesn’t really matter to most people that there are humans involved that have complete control over the guns or the dogs.  All that matters is that the guns/dogs caused harm, always as if on their own without any involvement whatsoever from human beings, and that something must be done so it never…ever…not ever…happens again.  Many people are of the mind that if the gun/dog didn’t even exist that the injuries and fatalities would never have happened nor could anything like them occur in the future as if guns are the only tools we can use to harm or kill others or as if pit bulls are the only kind of dogs that can harm or kill.  I can’t say that I understand that logic at all.  I don’t understand how so many people can become so blinded by fear that they neglect to consider the involvement of human beings.  Maybe it’s because if one human is held responsible for their actions then we too must be held responsible for all of ours.  Maybe it’s because people don’t understand or like the idea that if one human could do such a heinous thing that another can and therefore we could given the right circumstances and mindset. 

Holding the ‘tool’ responsible for the ‘deed’ is in my estimation one of the least productive and most asinine things we as a society can do.  Take away one tool and humans find another, take that tool away and we will find another and another and another.  The bottom line is that we humans more than likely will never stop hurting and killing one another, we will never stop being irresponsible dog owners that have no control over our dogs, we will never stop allowing rejection and disappointment to drive us to harm or kill others as our revenge on them for hurting our feelings, we will never stop allowing our dogs to roam at large or be around those who can’t defend themselves unsupervised.  These things and many more are things that humanity does and until humanity looks within and fixes the issues that drives these acts and more by using insight, empathy, compassion and help for those who need it these situations will occur AND they will occur long after there are no more guns or pit bulls should those who choose to hold the guns/dogs completely responsible get their way. 

Many people see these mass killings by guns and also people being harmed or killed by pit bull type dogs as a sign that we need to eliminate these things from our midst entirely so we can be a safer society.   What I see these continued horrendous and tragic incidents being a sign of is that it’s high time we humans STOPPED blaming the tool and started blaming ourselves, the society we have created together and the individual human beings that perpetrated the crime or neglect that resulted in injury or death. 

In the end do we need better gun control laws?  Surely we must; although the gun(s) used in Santa Barbara were purchased legally by a person who by all outward appearances was a nice young man, a ‘normal’ person.  Do we need better animal control laws?  Surely we do because humans are not understanding the importance of taking complete and full responsibility for the actions of the dogs or pets they take into their care.

So why am I going on and on about this when a vast majority of the people who read it will balk at the idea of taking focus off of the gun/pit bull issue.  Sure many of you will fume at the very thought of anyone with half a brain thinking/believing that guns are okay to own or that pit bulls are okay to have when both of them have caused so much pain and suffering for so many in the past.  What many won’t see or understand is that it is BECAUSE of where we place our focus when these tragedies occur that we continue to have them with such frequency.  NOT because there are still guns.  NOT because there are still pit bulls.  But because we have yet to place the blame and our focus on the one common denominator in every single incident where people have been harmed or killed since time immemorial and that one common denominator is the human being who used the gun against others or who allowed the dog to be out of control that harmed someone/something.

These incidents are painful and so very tragic but instead of allowing them to bring us together as one solid community that will work on improving things for the future we use them to divide us in ways that don’t really matter because we are all focusing on the wrong end of the gun/leash and that gets us nowhere.  If it did get us somewhere then these incidents would be on the decrease but as anyone who is exposed to the news media anywhere can tell you they are on the increase.  If anything I’ve written sinks into one person’s mind and helps them see where focus needs to be made in order to every truly fix these problems every word will be worth it.  Sure most will be closed off to any idea that guns or pit bulls are acceptable on any level and the rest will think me some sort of gun toting vicious dog raising idiot who has their head in the sand…but I say to those who choose that perspective that if my head is in the sand theirs is right there next to mine deeply embedded in the sand of fear and lack of logic where there is absolutely no real honest idea of how to fix the problem.