Handguns are for killing people. That's the only practical purpose for having one - to kill each other, to kill someone who might try to kill you first, to defend property as though property is worth endangering your life, to terrify and hurt, to risk your four-year-old daughter finding it in your drawer one day and playing with the trigger with her little fingers, to feel more powerful. There is no other purpose for owning a handgun besides the possibility of killing someone with it.
I can appreciate that the founding fathers were working with a different concept of war than exists today, and they needed to preserve community militias that could gather with muskets at the town square with ten minutes' notice. I understand that as a secondary concern, they wanted to preserve every family's right to eat - when the going got tough, they shot squirrels and raccoons. But I am damn sure that neither Abraham Lincoln nor Harry Truman nor any other great leader of the last 150 years has concerned himself overly with protecting my right to buy a Glock for $500 at
Walmart. It's a personal liberty I will willingly sacrifice if it reduces at all the chance that a dissociated personality can buy that same Glock and kill 32 people.
Let's face it. If a burgler breaks into my house, if a rapist comes through the window, if I'm mugged - statistics show that my best policy will be to stay calm, do what I need to do to survive, and try to live. If I pull out a gun the chance of my being harmed by my OWN GUN go through the roof. All I need is for that guy to grab it out of my hands. On a larger scale, the days of ground war in the first world are essentially over. If hegemony ever totally collapses, nuclear weapons and terrorism will end us before we have an old-fashioned shootout on the town green. Therefore - there is no reason for me, or people like me, to own handguns. It's time for us to go the route of England, New Zealand, Australia, etc. and shut down the market.
P.S. the shooter's sister was two years behind me at our (small) college. Regardless of how you might feel about the actions of the son, imagine the monumental tragedy of that family, to know that your son or brother killed dozens of people and himself, and you didn't do anything to stop it or step in when he was exhibiting such unmistakable signs of psychological meltdown. Then, imagine walking around with that guilt in your soul every day for the rest of your life. There really is no forgiveness or solace for that.
You mentioned all isolated incidents in other countries. Death by guns is a daily occurence in our country.
To your whole family and your daughters VT family! I am so happy she is safe.
