Killing: It’s Just What We Do

Tom EgelhoffPublished: July 7, 2014

LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 31: A surrendered TEC-9 style gun is seen at a gun buyback event that was announced by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in the wake of a killing spree at University of California, Santa Barbara that left six students dead, on May 31, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. People can exchange their firearms with no questions asked at four Los Angles-area locations for Ralphs supermarket gift cards ranging from $100 to $200 per weapon. The buyback program first took place in Los Angles in 2009 as part of the Gang Reduction and Youth Development program to reduce the number of guns on the streets. The last buyback resulted in more than 1,500 firearms being turned in. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

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On my Saturday show I mentioned that from my birth to about the age of 30 the United States was in a constant state of war. World War II ended when I was two, then the Korean Conflict through elementary and high school, then Vietnam after that.

The Birth of a Nation

America is no different than any other country on earth. Every square inch of the globe has changed hands hundreds, maybe thousands of times, and by force in most cases. Battles with Indians, battles with the British, and Mexico formed this great nation. The stronger nation conquered the weaker nation.

Lots of spilled blood on all sides. Did the end justify the means? That’s a question each of us would have to answer in our own hearts. Personally, I’m happy to be speaking English instead of German or Japanese.

An Armed America

Guns have always been a part of American culture. Other countries are amazed that anyone with a few bucks and a clean background can purchase a firearm. But it’s a freedom that our Founding Fathers took very seriously.

They felt that an unarmed populace would be at the mercy of an armed government. We have seen that historic scenario played out in many other countries. Germany during WWII for one.

It’s for those reasons that the second amendment is one of the most important and most staunchly defended of all the freedoms in the Bill of Rights.

Gun Control

For the sake of clarification, I am a Vietnam Vet but, I’m not a gun owner, or a hunter, or sport shooter. I do enjoy watching the good guys shoot the bad guys on TV from time to time. But in real life people do get killed for real.

School shootings, as well as other public shootings are an all too common occurrence in America. Yet the spirit and freedom of the second amendment remains. How can you restrict the freedoms of some, without weakening the freedoms of the rest? The short answer is you can’t — and shouldn’t.

As I said, I’m not a gun owner, but I am a supporter of the 2^nd Amendment for the same reasons our Founding Fathers were. No law, form, ordinance, direction or edict is going to stop someone who wants a gun from getting one.

All we can do is try our best to find and weed out those who might be a threat to themselves and others. But that too is a very slippery slope in itself.

Some Final Thoughts

In many ways our world is still very primitive in its thinking. Power and control are still the weapons of choice to achieve ones goals. You’ve got it, I want it, and if you won’t give it to me, I’ll just take it from you, by force if necessary.

Rodney King’s famous one liner, “Can’t we all get along?” seems to ring more true today, with half the world in conflict, than it did at the time he said it.

I’m not convinced that arming every citizen is the solution anymore than disarming every citizen would keep people safer. Bad guys are still going to find a way to get a weapon. If not a gun then a bomb, knife or baseball bat. The 9/11 hijackers used box cutters.

The only real answer is for humans to evolve to the point that finding peaceful solutions to conflicts is more beneficial than any other alternative. That day is approaching. Just not as fast as many of us would like.