Stop Blaming The Gun

I really wish people would stop blaming the inanimate object for shootings committed by people who shouldn't have them.

A six-year-old boy shoots and kills his 10-year-old brother with a gun owned illegally by his criminal stepfather. Sadder still is what the 6-year-old said when the police arrived: “I’m 6 years old. You can’t touch me.” Why would the child say something like this, and from whom did he learn it?

While it is sad that this tragedy happened, it's sadder still that this child felt no remorse for what he did. Personally, I would lock up the stepfather and the 6-year-old and throw away the key, because what this society needs is one less sociopath causing trouble for everyone else. You can't blame the gun for creating a remorseless sociopathic killer, but you can probably blame the mother and the stepfather.

In another story, a Connecticut man goes "postal" (or would that be "brewtal?") when he goes on a shooting spree at his job at a beer warehouse. It was this person who decided to commit this crime and it so happened that he managed to get a gun, but being that he was a truck driver for the company, he could very easily have plowed his truck into his supervisors. Do you then blame the truck for the actions of this person? What's more, the criminal, who has since removed himself from society, was stealing beer long before this incident happened, which was why he was being discipline right before he started shooting. Do you then blame the beer? No, you blame the deranged person for this crime.