BANG BANG, SHOOT SHOOT...

...history repeating itself again and again...

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They called him a hero in the land of the free

But he wouldn't shake my hand, boy, he disappointed me

So I got my handgun and blew him away

That critter was a bad guy; I had to make him pay...

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There's an old song from the 1930s or 40s with the title "A Hundred Years From Now", and perhaps it's true; all the issues we're facing today won't mean a tinker's damn (!!!), and today's high-tech society will seem oh, so primitive. History has a way of repeating itself though, as we saw over the weekend when a Congress Lady, a Federal Judge, and a 9-year-old child among others were shot at by some wacko who managed to fly under the radar and got himself a semi-automatic weapon. Several people died tragically. How do people like that get guns so easily? Until we get stricter with gun purchases, stuff like this will continue to happen right here in America, where one shouldn't be afraid holding a sort-of outdoor Town Hall Meeting in front of a grocery store. Obviously we haven't learned from history; we keep repeating it...and the shootings continue.

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In the course of my own brief lifetime, I remember President Kennedy's assassination; it's the first Politically-oriented memory I have, since I was only 10 at the time. I was a little older when Bobby Kennedy got shot. Martin Luther King comes to mind here also. There was the attempt on President Reagan's life, and how about the murder of Egypt's Anwar Sadat...the killing of TV actress Rebecca Shaeffer, the infamous deaths of Nicole Simpson & Ronald Goldman, the gunning down of John Lennon, and the 2002 deaths of folks like you and me, pumping gas, delivering the mail, leaving the car to go shopping, or just standing on the corner during that rash of killings. And all that doesn't even come close to the total amount of violence in cities, large or small around the country. How bizarre.

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The Arizona shooter evidently was nursing some nebulous anti-governmental obsession. Timothy McVeigh comes to mind here, even tho he was a bomber, not a shooter. Some murders are committed for religious reasons. The conservatives shoot the liberals (the murder of Denver Radio talk-show host Alan Berg, for instance), the fan shoots the star, the poor guy shoots the rich guy, and so on...now, toss all of the above into the bin with the rest of all the stuff, like Murdering someone for the Insurance Money, or Child Custody issues, jealousies, Robberies, Road Rage, or even someone looking the wrong way at someone else. Oh, I almost forgot drugs, gang-banging, embezzlement, divorce, and psychic issues, and I'm sure if I slaved over this paragraph for a while longer, I could come up with more reasons why people are killed with guns. But I think that'll do for now. All I know is, the many cable crime-channels won't run short of material to air anytime soon.-

It's safe to say that in most cases, all of these tragic events have one thing in common: A Gun. So we're back to the same old argument. As long as guns remain so easily available, vicious murders are gonna happen. "Well, what about knives and other weapons", you ask. A Gun can kill people from far away, as the D.C. Sniper shootings demonstrate, and automatic weapons can kill many people in a split-second. Guns enable the shooter to stand far, far away, or mow down a bunch of people in an instant. Stabbings or stranglings involve a closer, hands-on manner of Murder. It's just easier to use Guns to kill people. Sad but true. I'm watching "The First 48", an MSNBC crime show as I'm typing this. Each episode features two crimes in two different parts of the nation, and tonight, as usual, both Crimes involved Guns. People killing other people, thus throwing their own lives away. No one wins in a murder case.

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She was my lover, it was a shame that she died,

But the Constitution's right on my side

'Cos I caught my lover in my neighbor's bed

I got retribution, filled 'em with lead

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I don't know, really, why automatic and semi-automatic guns need to be manufactured and sold (unless for wartime uses) and for that matter, I don't understand how some crazy wacko can get a gun of any type. Some folks say, "we need new gun laws", and those who say No to that instead say, "we need to enforce the rules already in place". As long as guns are made easily available, the carnage will continue. I'm all for gun-rights. I've never shot a gun, but I used to shoot a bow & arrow, and wouldn't have wanted my bow to be taken away from me. Enforce the Gun Laws we have today! Put amendments on those statutes so that guns will not be available to those who shouldn't have them! So, the gun issue will be once again debated furiously in the coming days, until a high-profile murder hasn't happened for a while, but ain't that the way it always is?

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You know a gun never killed anybody, you can ask anyone,

People get shot by People...People with GUNS!

Put out the fire...put out the fire...put out the fire...

You need a Gun like a hole in the head...

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Lyrics taken from "Put Out The Fire" from Queen's "Hot Space" album, released in 1981, just after Lennon's death.