Get shot

The PAGV are quite justified in drawing public attention to these tragic incidents, however they do not do their credibility any favours by the cavalier and inaccurate fashion that they present them. I have researched each of these shootings and as always the real stories for the most part tell a very different tale.

I won’t go into each in detail, anyone who cares to can goolge them themselves, but for instance lets look at the lottery ticket case. The father was a retired cop and Vietnam vet of distinction who shot his wayward and violent son, a convicted rapist who was about to kill him. It was deemed justifiable self defence and he was not charged.Such a case should not be presented as “My son and I were arguing over lottery numbers,so I shot him”. At no point did the father say anything of the sort.

Almost all of these quotes are made up, the parking space shooter, who only wounded the other person has never been found so he could not have said “I left a folding chair” etc. The father in the basement incident, again he was not charged as his actions were considered justifiable, involved a 72 year father and his 14 year old son. The father believed his son to be at school, he went to the basement armed and his son’s prank resulted in an tragic accidental shooting.

Pressure groups like the PAGV, well intentioned though they might be, almost always are highly selective in the way these present matters. There is no doubt that certain practical measures could be introduced to prevent the extremely small number of genuine gun tragedies which occur annually in the USA. Outside of crime and suicide they account for 1 per cent of gun related deaths. However sadly, pressure groups like PAGV are too interested in
creating hype and emotion to promote such measures in a calm and productive way.

The PAGV should consider the fact that for every child killed by a bullet in a given year, hundreds of lives are saved by firearms as the incredible impact of concealed carry licensing has proven in the dramatic reduction in violent crime in every state it has been introduced.

They should also consider that for every life taken by a bullet in a year, six are taken by a knife, also that only 25 per cent of people shot actually die whereas the mortality rate from stabbings is 80 per cent. It is odd that there is no pressure group concerned with knife crime in the USA.

Having travelled extensively throughout the USA in 2014 and 2015 on my motorcycle (18,000 miles in total) often inn very remote areas, I can totally understand why there are so many guns held for self defence. Even in suburbia, distances are so large that Police assistance is highly unlikely to arrive in time. Given the mix of races and cultures mixed into a single non homogenous country over such a short time scale, violence is inevitable, our own country was violent for thousands of years due to the different races which invaded and then mixed in before we settled into the largely peaceful state in which we live now. It is easy to judge America harshly but one needs to look at the bigger picture.

What an odd country. Let’s hope that America never gets nuclear weapons.

Let’s hope America never uses them………………………..