This afternoon, in my neighborhood

[pegkerr]

I live in a lovely neighborhood here in South Minneapolis, just a few blocks from a couple of pretty little lakes. The houses are tidy and modest and well-cared for. Lots of children. Lovingly tended gardens. Property values are rising quite nicely. Friendly neighbors, with active block watch groups. When you walk around on a sunny day like the one we had this afternoon, you can smell lilacs in the air.

A little over a block away from our home, a woman was shot to death today in her own home. The other person in the house, a man, who had apparently shot himself but was still alive, was taken to the hospital. The television station reported that they "knew each other" but offered no other details.

A bill to make permits to carry handguns in public available to more people gained final legislative approval this month and was signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

It is to go into effect in 30 days. Eventually, according to an official legislative estimate, it could increase the number of people licensed to tote guns on Minnesota streets from fewer than 12,000 now to about 90,000.

You figure it out.

Angel of death, pass by.

Comments

[debellatrix.livejournal.com]

*shakes head in bafflement*

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Stuff like this happened in our neighborhood in Oakland, but (unfortunately) people expect it there. It made me feel so uncomfortable. I'm glad I don't live there anymore, but it can happen anywhere.

*hugs*

[infinitus.livejournal.com]

It is interesting to note that owning a handgun drastically increases your chances of being shot. I wonder how many people have considered that statistic.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

I will just mention that carrying a handgun in public is not what the man who killed the woman a block from your house was doing. It's not just carrying them that's the problem; it's that they exist at all.

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

my point was that so many more people are going to have them right there at hand when they lose their temper in an argument. Or suddenly go wacko.

They made a big deal about "we're going to make sure that no one has any history of mental illness or abuse can get one." Well, there's a first time for everything, isn't there? And once someone who has never up till now been any kind of trouble puts a handgun against a loved one's head and pulls the trigger, you can't really go back and fix it, can you? How many news reports have you seen where the neighbors have said, "I had no idea. I never saw any kind of behavior from him like that at all"?

Peg

[misia.livejournal.com]

As a former handgun owner and as a person both trained an licensed to carry a concealed weapon, I also share your worry. During the very short time that I regularly carried a firearm (less than a year, and it was a reasonable precaution for me to be taking during that period of my life, which says more about my ex-husband than about anything) I learned many things about being a gun owner in America, among them the following:

-- that very few gun owners have ever taken a gun safety class, let alone been trained by a professional in the use and storage of firearms.

-- that very few gun owners are willing to consider the use of trigger locks, despite the fact that they maintain that their firearms are for sporting use only

-- that quite a few of the gun owners I encountered, at firing ranges no less, couldn't hit the broad side of a barn at high noon on a clear day if you painted a target on it for them, a level of ineptitude which virtually guarantees that should they ever make off-range use of their guns, they're going to be highly erratic and unreliable marksmen. And those were the ones who *went* to firing ranges to practice. I shudder to think about the ones who think they don't need to.

-- It is scarily simple to get a concealed weapons permit. It is scarily simple to get a gun. It is scarily simple to get things like hollowpoint bullets.

-- I personally got to know two people who had nearly killed themselves by accidentally triggering a weapon in an underarm holster *because they hadn't put the safety on when they holstered the weapons in their own damn armpits*

I took close to 100 hours of training and range practice before I was willing to own a handgun, during a period of my life when I felt it entirely justified that I own and carry one. I feel, having done that, that that's about the minimum that an intelligent human being should be required to do before being permitted to own a firearm... because I know that I was by no means expert at the end of those 100 hours, and that I could easily have made a stupid and perhaps fatal mistake even with all that training.

Fortunately for the gunmakers, though, and for all the people who feel that the "right to bear arms" should be quoted completely out of its context (i.e., the part that reads "Amendment II:
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."), all you really have to do to be legally allowed a gun is show up, provide a photo and fingerprints and proof that you haven't been convicted of any felonies, and you're good to go... and those requirements were only enacted in 1994.

I mean, you have to pass a test to drive a car, don't you?

Ugh. Rant over. Suffice to say that I no longer own a handgun, and that I have learned enough from the experience of having owned one that I never again will.

[demarazare.livejournal.com]

If you haven't yet, you should see Bowling for Columbine...

Deals with many of the same issues, and why America is such a nation of fear.

Too sad, really...

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

Just to throw in another POV, in my experience, people without a habit of gun ownership/handling are more likely to use one illegally/stupidly than those who make the decision to purchase and carry one as a habit.

I know not everyone agrees - and they are free to do so - but the other 9 rights are there because of the second amendment, not in spite of it.

I am for harsher sentences for people who misuse guns. I am for increased public education on the proper use of guns. I am for voluntary licensing - perhaps linked to decreased legal liability or insurance costs.

I am not for waiting periods, assault gun bans, or registration. And I am uneasy with the direction the USA is taking with those steps.

- hossgal

Chances are I've been in your neighborhood...

[ex-sallygard858.livejournal.com]

I've been in much of South Minneapolis at one time or another, including the areas by the lakes, and I never felt it was in any way "dangerous." Then again, I'm sure most people don't think of their own homes as being "dangerous," but look how many assaults and killings take place in people's own homes.

Having a gun just makes it that much easier to do that much more damage when tempers and judgment fly to the four winds.

I can't believe what is happening to my formerly progressive state under the Pawlenty administration. I never thought I'd want Jesse back, but given the choice...

That's Jesse Ventura, BTW, not Jesse Helms ;-) -- but it's seeming like the latter would be more in keeping with the direction the New Republicans are taking us. Interesting that "The Handmaid's Tale" is now premiering in the Twin Cities as an opera.