by Angela Blair

Created on: November 16, 2009   Last Updated: November 17, 2009

"Reflections: Gun Violence!" The very statement is a misnomer. More appropriately, it might be titled: "Reflections: Violent People." The title's implication seems to be that guns, in and of themselves, are violent, have a distinct personality, a soul and are independently capable of making a qualified decision to create violence, i.e. kill someone or something by virtue of the gun's own will.

There's no reports or evidence a gun, regardless who owns it, has ever had to be incarcerated because it went balistic and shot up a grade school, jumped out of it's holster and began indiscriminately shooting anything that crossed it's path or jumped up on a table and shouted some sort of dogma and killed 13 people and wounded 30 others. Guns just don't do that of their own volition. Guns are inanimate objects, like a toaster or a blender, until loaded and in the hand of a living, thinking (or not) human being.

Most responsible gun owners (whom one rarely reads about), were early on given the following, or similar advice: (1) Never play with a gun - it's not a toy; (2) learn to shoot well enough to hit what you aim at; (3) never pull a gun on, or point a gun at, another human being (as in self-defense) unless you're willing to follow through and shoot until the gun is empty; and (4) threatening someone with a gun and backing down will definitely get you killed. Responsibility is the key word pertaining to guns and any actions pertaining to them.

Gun incidents involving children happen all too often and are the most heartbreaking in the world. The first question asked : Why was the gun loaded and accessible to a child in the first place? Unless the gun owner is a career criminal the gun was probably loaded prepatory to the eventuality of being able to quickly protect one's home and family.

Gun owners are the only ones responsibile when a child/gun incident occurs and neither the child nor the gun should share the blame. There's no excuse for a gun owner that doesn't securely LOCK UP a loaded gun, making it impossible for children, or anyone else, to get to it. Very clever locks are available that allow one to unlock and remove a gun as quickly as counting to three and absolutely no one can work the lock without very explicit, involved instructions.

Responsible adults put protective devices on cabinet doors where harmful chemicals and cleaning supplies are kept to protect children from poisoning yet rarely apply the same logic to loaded guns. Children are curious and

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