The Second Amendment

Adopted on my birthday - 169 years earlier.

You'd have to be a recluse not to have heard about the recent shootings in Tucson.

We listened to the speech President Obama made at the memorial service and I'm glad I did.

In Tucson, six people lost their lives. A tragedy by any measure.

And there begins the age old debate from gun control to mental illness.

But tragedies occur every day. With and without a gun.

The question is always whether restrictions in gun ownership reduces the number of gun-related crimes. It seems to me that the data will forever be skewed because so many guns are already out there. Many of them illegal. Sometimes due to the legal restrictions on ownership.

I grew up around guns. I have two brothers who are avid hunters. I know plenty of people whose wardrobe has a high percentage of camouflage. They're safe with their weapons and even eat what they kill.

Obviously the vast majority of people are law abiding citizens and would never think of commiting a violent act with or without a gun. Truly violent people are a very small percentage of any society.

Is it that very society, its cultural, social and economic factors, that produce a person willing to kill?

The gun death rate in Europe is much lower than in the U.S. and there are certainly some strict gun laws in Europe, but it would be unfair to say that the strict laws are the sole reason. Strict laws can't be discounted, but low homicide rates, by comparison, existed in Europe even before the strict gun laws.

It is hard to ignore that Hawaii, with the lowest gun ownership (less than 10% of the population) also has the lowest gun death rate and that my home state of Louisiana, with 45% of its population as gun owners has the highest gun homicide rate in the country.

There is plenty of data to show that the U.S. not only has the most guns, it also has the most gun homicides of any wealthy nation.

Despite countless illegal guns on the street, they start off as registered then sometimes get stolen or traded or sold and . . . so criminals continue to have a ready supply. Best I can tell, there appears to be some correlation between availability and eventual tragedy.

The ideals which helped inspire the Second Amendment came in part from the Minutemen of the American Revolution. They could respond on a moment's notice and needed to be armed.

When I was in my teens there was a Minuteman hamburger joint on Tech Drive. It's long been out of business. When I was commuting to El Dorado, I was surprised and delighted to find one there (pictured above). I really think it may be the last one on the planet.

Anyway, there's no evidence to suggest carrying a weapon on a daily basis to church or the mall will protect you in the unlikely event you come face to face with a mental case. In fact, a survey by the Pennsylvania School of Medicine found the armed person is 4 times more likely to be shot. I don't find that hard to believe. I have a hard enough time digging my cell phone out of my purse.

As proposed by some legislators, every Sunday morning worshiper, every grade school teacher, and every college student at the pub should be packing heat to protect themselves. I personally think that is just too stupid for words and that if every person is walking around armed, a melee' is imminent.

Even in the Tucson incident, hero #2, who also had a gun, admits he almost shot hero #1 because hero #1 was waving the gun he'd just taken away from the lunatic when he wrestled him to the ground. Thankfully hero #2 had some common sense and didn't immediately open fire.

Lifelong gun owners have experience and maybe a little common sense, but we aren't all lifelong gun owners and some of us have very little common sense. Sometimes the law even protects us from ourselves.

There's potential danger anywhere. You may also want to stay off the road. That's where there are plenty of lunatics and sadly, plenty of fatalities.