Not again!

Sickening news from the US, where it appears some nutter with a gun has committed an atrocity against innocents.

The coverage of this US shooting is essentially on two fronts.  The first being shots of (rightly) very upset people in a small town in Connecticut trying to articulate their grief and shock in a way that a news editor has deemed suitable for broadcast, when the actual but unbroadcastable reality is probably somebody sitting on their sofa, clutching a cup of tea, or a beer, and occasionally muttering ‘but…why?’ for several minutes, hours or days based on their proximity to the event, or empathy.

The other front is reporting the issue of gun control. 

This is very much an American thing, where the media clips that run with the story are invariably of automatic weapons, handguns, and row upon row of guns for sale in, apparently, ‘Guns R Us’.

The British attitude towards gun control was settled years ago, in tragic circumstances.  We had our tragedy and the Government quite rightly acted swiftly and decisively.  Anyone who bleated about an infringement of their ‘right’ to own as many bloody guns as they wanted was quietly taken aside and asked to stop talking, preferably about anything, ever, again.

But it’s more complex than outright prohibition.  If you are a responsible citizen, or have a use for them, there’s nothing wrong with owning a gun, or guns.  Certainly, if you shoot game, you’ll want to be able to select the right gun and the right shot to bag something for the table or hopelessly outclass the chap at the next peg, depending on the sort of day you have in store.  If you are keeping down pests such as rats or foxes, you won’t want something that is going to result in a cloud of shot and sudden air-conditioning in the barn.  If you want to deal with an urban fox, I suggest a thermos of scotch, a head light and a shovel.  Lastly, when dealing with the Taliban, one will need a rifle, a suitable sidearm as an auxiliary weapon, and, favourite of all, a mobile ‘phone with your mate who controls the Predator Drone in the area on speed dial 1.

What baffles me is the American fondness for automatic weapons.  Hand guns in particular.  What game are these used to bring down?  And in terms of home security, are they really as good as, say, a new front door with deadlocks?  Of course, I appreciate that many Americans do go hunting at the weekend, blending into the countryside in their camouflage trousers and high-viz orange vests, looking for all the world like elves who work for the Highway Department, and they take their automatic weapons with them.  And I know that fearsome beasts lurk in the American woods, bears, wolves, hillbillies, oh my.  But, seriously, automatic weapons?  For hunting?  Are the bears wearing armour?  If you are so shit at hunting that it takes you a clip and a half to put down Yogi, then you need to do three things.

First, you need to get your ass to the Highlands and learn how to stalk.  This is not the same as that thing you did with that cute girl from accounts that resulted in you having to move to another city after the court case.  This means stealthily tracking your prey.  First lesson is free – don’t crush your beer can while burping when a few yards from anything with more teeth than you.

Second, learn to shoot.  One shot with your eyes open is better than several hundred with them closed.  Remember that bit in ‘Predator’ where Arnie’s team level half the jungle?  Yea, good wasn’t it?  But they didn’t kill the Predator.

Finally, get your fat ass to Norfolk, find a decent gun shop and buy yourself a proper, man sized, grown up hunting piece.  I mean something put together by a craftsman.  It is not designed to make you look like a hard-ass in your Facebook photos.  It is deigned to bring about the sure and certain destruction of anything you point it at, which you better know how to cook.  And while you are there, get yourself a decent fishing rod and a tweed jacket.

There’s nothing wrong with owning a gun.  Or guns.  There is something very wrong with owning a gun, or guns, without good reason.

What happened in Connecticut was horrific.  And while gun control is not a UK issue, and it’s certainly not up to the UK to tell the US how to run their own affairs, it doesn’t, it can’t, stop us looking at the images from another school, another facebook photo of another nutter, and thinking, along with the throat-drying, heart-numbing horror of it all, ‘what the hell will it take?’.  Maybe the best way to protect innocents isn’t guns, it’s gun control.