Guns. In America, they are everywhere. But I don’t need to tell you that. America has the worst murder ratio by guns of any first-world country.
Some third-world countries have higher gun deaths, but those all fall under the crime-laden, drug-trafficking countries like El Salvador, Venezuela, and Guatemala.
But as far as guns per capita in the world? USA! USA! We’re number ONE! We’re Number ONE!
Yes, we have far more per capita than any other country. The United States has 120 guns for every 100 people. Next behind us is the Falkland Islands, with 62 guns per 100 people.
We are ridiculous. Seven shootings over the weekend, including a massacre at a Dallas-area outlet mall, brought the total number of mass shootings in the U.S. this year to over 200, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA). So far, in 2023, 14,854 people have died from gun violence in the U.S. We are ridiculous. Republican legislators are horrible in placing more value on owning guns than people’s lives. Children’s lives. What is wrong with them?
Most of you know all of this. And if you own a gun? Well. So do I. It holds six bullets. I keep it for protection. If I need more than six bullets, then I am screwed, regardless. I don’t think anyone needs or should have more than six bullets.
I started all of this because I came across a related / unrelated article. It focuses on a topic that I learned about in a gun safety course I took years ago.
And the subject?
Where do bullets go when guns are fired straight up in the air?
Just from the title and from a scientific standpoint — what goes up must come down.
But I will tell you this. Firing gunshots into the air can be extremely dangerous to bystanders.
So. Back to “What goes up must come down.” If you fire a gun into the air, the bullet will travel up to a mile high. The distance will depend on the angle of the shot and the power of the gun. But at some point, that bullet stops rising and begins its descent. Yes. Once that bullet reaches its apogee, it will fall. Air resistance limits its speed. Yes, we know that bullets are designed to be aerodynamic. So the speed of the downward bullet is still quite lethal if it happens to hit someone.
In rural areas, the chance of hitting someone is remote because the number of people is low. In crowded cities, however, the probability rises dramatically, and stray bullets kill people quite often.
We heard all sorts of stories about this in our gun safety course. But here are some from the article.
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An 87-year-old Philadelphia woman had a close encounter with a falling bullet on New Year’s Eve 2022 when she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder as she stood on her front porch ringing in the new year. She was shocked when she removed her blouse and a bullet fell to the floor. Police called it a “suspected celebratory gunfire incident.”
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On New Year’s Eve 2017, Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives Armando Martinez stepped outside a home and suddenly felt as if he’d been struck with a sledgehammer. After he was rushed to the hospital, it turned out that he’d been hit on the top of the head by a falling .223-caliber bullet. A fragment of the round penetrated the top of his skull and lodged itself in the top layer of his brain, requiring surgery to remove it.
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There aren’t good statistics on how often this happens across the United States, but news reports describe numerous fatalities over the years. The article cited several cases where celebratory gunfire injured or killed others.
People and their guns. Doing stupid things with their guns. Posing with them on Christmas cards. Wearing assault rifle pins in Congress. Celebrating their guns. Clutching their guns with their “cold, dead hands,” like Charleston Heston, aka Moses. (He should have had to retract his role of Moses, by the way. Moses hated guns. He said so just before he stepped from behind the burning bush.)
Anyway. Here we are.
And the sad thing is, there will be no reform. Not in our lifetime. And it is not likely to happen in our children’s lifetime either.
It may be several generations before school shooting victims fill the majority of Congress. Then, maybe.
And that is sad. But eventually, what goes up, must come down. It just depends on the trajectory of the thing, and the power that first sent it on its way.
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“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
― George Carlin
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“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
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“Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.”
― Margaret Atwood, Surfacing
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