Good morning, Reg. I trust this missive finds you and the other guys of HMSOldies in the rudest of health. It leaves me feeling older and achier every day. I wish they would find a cure for old age! Below is something for you to peruse. I’ve got too much time on my hands these days so I tend to see or hear something and that leads on to something else, et cetera.
THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS
A couple of things happened recently that got me thinking about America’s Right to Bear Arms. When I refer to guns or arms I mean shotguns, rifles and hand guns. The Second Amendment to the American Constitution was ratified in December 1791. The original text says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This idea has been challenged a few times but each time it has been upheld by the Supreme Court. You won’t be surprised to know that America has 120 guns per hundred people, twice as many as the next country.
I must say I was totally surprised by the following fact. The notion of average citizens possessing their own weapons predates the American Constitution. In the English Bill of Rights in 1689, Parliament allowed all Protestant English citizens to “have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.”
Enough of the history, let’s get back to the present. A friend died recently and his wife asked my neighbour Tom if he would like a 9-millimetre pistol her husband had owned. she gave it to him she said she had removed the magazine and it was now safe. Oh, no it wasn’t! Unknown to Tom there was still a bullet in the chamber. He took it home and was sitting on his couch playing with it. He decided to test the pressure needed to pull the trigger. The gun went off sending a bullet through a wall and ricocheting off a glass window; as it happens it was toughened glass. He forgot lesson number one, make doubly sure the gun is empty before playing around with it.
Another friend, Ken, who lives on the other side of Tom, did the same thing. Ken has a number of guns in his house plus lots of ammunition for all of them. When I told him recently that I had sold the .380 mm pistol I owned he went mad and asked why I hadn’t offered it to him. Anyway, he was sitting in his garage playing with his gun when it went off. The bullet went through a wall and into a bedroom on the other side. He could have killed either himself or his wife because they are home all day. There is a certain irony to this because he is almost too frightened to go out for fear of someone shooting him. Why go out and risk getting shot when you can do it yourself in the comfort of your own home?
When I was visiting my cousin some time ago his phone rang. He got the sad news that a friend of his had shot his girlfriend in the stomach. When she fell to the ground he shot her in the head. The gun he had used was a Derringer. You may have seen them in cowboy films when someone hides the gun in his hand because they are so small. It usually has two barrels, one above the other. My cousin said he had a Derringer and went to get it to show me. The barrels are quite big, large enough to put your little finger in. He said it would take a shotgun cartridge or a bullet. He was trying to break it open to show me while I was putting my finger down the barrel. As I took out my finger the gun went off, deafening me and frightening the living daylights out of me. The bullet hit a chair breaking it, the bullet broke up, shot across the room and embedded bits in two walls.
Another cousin from Kentucky who died a couple of weeks back once told me on a visit that he had nineteen guns; nine rifles and ten handguns plus ammunition for all of them. He was a conspiracy theorist. A former neighbour of mine was the same. Not only did he stock guns and ammunition but had boxes of dehydrated food stored under his bed. He even told my then wife she should do the same because there would be an uprising soon. He told me that if I ever saw a fire in his house, I should leave the area immediately because of all the stored ammunition he had for his numerous guns. I found out two days ago that I have another neighbour about six houses away who is also stocking up on guns, ammunition, food and water.
And lastly, facts that you may not be aware of. There are five towns in America that mandate the ownership of guns. Kennesaw in Georgia mandated in 1982 that the heads of each household should own at least one firearm. In 2013 the town of Nelson, also in Georgia, passed an ordinance stating that every household should own a gun and ammunition. In the same year the town of Nucla in Colorado mandated gun ownership but does not actually enforce it. Gun Barrel City, Texas, got its fitting name as a safe haven for outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde during the Prohibition era. The city’s motto is, “We shoot straight with you.” And lastly the city of Virgin, Utah, mandated firearm ownership in 2000. The mayor at the time encouraged this move because most citizens already owned guns.
The saddest fact of all is that in 2022 some 48,204 people died from guns in America. That’s a staggering 132 men, women and children every single day.
Best wishes, Jack
Hello Jack, My word, you still know how to get the thought processes running! This is not strictly HMSO-orientated, but as America is currently very much in the news, I am sure that we can find space for this thought-provoking item. Good to hear that you are still up and at it. Keep going.
Reg.