A well-regulated militia…

From the news:

A man accidentally shot his wife last night at the Super 8 Motel on Merchants Drive, but that’s not what he initially told officers, KPD officials said. Officers responded around midnight after the man called 911 and said someone had shot through the window of the motel room and struck his wife.

Officers said they found the woman lying on a bed with a knee injury, where they applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding until EMT’s arrived to transport the victim to University of Tennessee Medical Center. Her injury was non-life threatening.

The man repeatedly said he didn’t know who had shot his wife, but after additional questioning from officers admitted it was his handgun that had discharged, KPD officials said.He told officers he owned a handgun and kept it inside his vehicle. He was attempting to unload the weapon while inside his vehicle when it discharged and struck his wife.”

Sadly, there is nothing remarkable about this news item.  As a former police officer, I especially like the details about the responsible gun owner’s actions after he accidentally shot his wife.  Naturally, he hid the weapon and lied repeatedly to police.  Because what kind of a responsible gun owner would take actual responsibility for his own actions?  I don’t suppose he will be charged, since gun owners normally get a pass on any kind of goofhead negligence that results in an “accidental” shooting, even when the result is dead body.

For a daily dose of such nonsense, take a look at a news and media Facebook site called “A Well-Regulated Militia.”  The site is a compendium of news articles about accidental and intentional shootings committed by so-called “responsible gun owners.”

As the website notes: “The 2nd amendment calls for a well regulated militia, but this is what we have instead. Which founding father would be proudest of us?”

The website itself adds no editorial comment to the articles it posts, except for referring to the responsible parties as “members of our well regulated militia.”

To scroll through the site is to gape in horror at the fetid swamp of America’s gun culture.  The incidents related on the site have a common theme: “A responsible gun owner is responsible until he or she is not.”  This is the sad truth about gun ownership.  Firearms are tools that are designed to kill.  When mishandled or used inappropriately, they can and do kill.  There’s no way to know beforehand if a person will handle a firearm responsibly or if they will leave it unattended and loaded on a coffee table, so that a 4-year old child can pick it up and kill a 2-year old.

The website makes no policy recommendations, and I personally have no answer for the endless procession of senseless tragedies that we are apparently willing to accept. Guns are legal, and I suppose they always will be, hysterical rants about “government gun grabs” notwithstanding.  If I lived in an area where I truly felt imperiled by high rates of criminal activity or ineffective law enforcement, I might want to own a firearm myself.  But I was a police officer for nine years and I served in the military for more than twenty, so I understand a few things about proper handling and use of firearms.  As the website mournfully attests, not all “responsible gun owners” do.

The saddest part of the whole thing is how often children are victimized by the negligence of adults, and how infrequently “responsible gun owners” are actually held responsible for the results of their negligence.  Over and over again, authorities decline to charge persons responsible for “accidental” shootings.  Sometimes, when the dead victim is the child of the “responsible gun owner,” some official will be quoted saying, “They’ve suffered enough.”

That’s quite a presumption, and I am not certain that someone’s feeling should determine whether or not they are held accountable for their actions.  We don’t seem to feel that way when drunk or distracted drivers kill people through negligence.

Click here for more news about our well-regulated militia: https://www.facebook.com/OurWellRegulatedMilitia/

 

August 12, 2018

Posted in American Life.