People With Guns Kill People

This morning's senseless and horrifying shooting in Aurora, Colorado was perpetrated by a young man armed with FOUR guns. He used them with obvious premeditation. He has no criminal record and nothing about him stood out to authorities. This man seemed ordinary, yet he ended the lives of at least 12 people and injured dozens more. The only thing that stands out, as of now, is that he was armed with 4 guns. Without those weapons, those innocent people would still be alive and whole. Without those particular guns, a movie would have remained a fun event instead of a mind-bending tragedy. The guns are what stands out.

The National Rifle Association has spent millions upon millions of dollars to protect their 2nd Amendment rights. The right to keep and bear arms is sacrosanct to them and their millions of members. My question for them is this: Does YOUR ( and my) right to keep and bear arms supersede the right of all of us to LIFE, to the having the right to live without the fear of being gunned down? The very first right given to us in the US Constitution is LIFE. You do not have the right to infringe on that most basic of rights, I don't care what the 2nd Amendment says. The fact is that people with GUNS kill people. It is time to take a look at how freely guns are are available and how they are regulated. After all, the Amendment the NRA worships has to do with a "well regulated militia." Guns, in and of themselves, are NOT the point of the Second Amendment. We would all do well to remember that.  The POINT of the Second Amendment is to protect LIFE not to infringe upon it. For the NRA, guns are a means and an end in and of themselves. That is just WRONG. The end is to protect life and liberty. Guns can sometimes, rarely, be a means to that end. ALWAYS, guns should be the last resort, as it was for the Founders who tried every other way to have their grievances with England redressed. Armed revolt was the last resort. The NRA needs to learn to see guns in this light. Otherwise, you have a mass of people who worship guns instead of the life and freedom they are meant to protect. When you begin to worship weapons, you end up with a violent  society uninterested in the preservation of life. You end up with horrendous massacres of innocent people who stood no chance of defending themselves. That goes against EVERYTHING  the Founders of this country intended. And the NRA knows it.

I believe the National Rifle Association has a responsibility to the victims and families of the Aurora shooting. They OWE it to these people to take a good hard look at their values and principles and reassess them to stand more in line with the respect for human life. The NRA needs to reassess their ethics. They need to do it now.

*ALL content herein is the opinion of the author