Guns DO Kill People

On August 3, three people in Salem were killed in a murder suicide. Union Leader

Investigators are continuing to piece together the events leading up to Tuesday's murder-suicide. Jeffrey Kaznecki, 50, shot Barbara Kaznecki, 51, and his 85-year-old mother, Shirley Leary, before turning the gun on himself at the home the three shared at 33 Wheeler Ave.

One of my friends experienced a similar tragedy last month with some family friends. The husband shot his wife, called his daughter to inform her that he'd just killed her mother, then hung up and then shot himself. It's unimaginably wrenching for family and friends to go through the aftermath of something like this.

Six days before she was fatally shot by her husband, Barbara Kaznecki posted a Facebook message against tougher gun control laws.

On July 25, she participated in a Facebook challenge for all gun owners to post a statement about the U.S. Supreme Court affirming the right to bear arms. It finished with the statement "guns don't kill people, people kill people."

I'm really tired of that NRA slogan. Guns DO kill. That's what they're for. They aren't a multi-purpose machine - they're a killing machine. And when they're in the hands of the unbalanced, they're going to be used for their sole purpose.

After the Aurora theater massacre, a lot of Walter Mittys strutted and postured about how if THEY'D been there, they would have manfully gunned down the shooter. I'd like to hear one of the  Walters explain to me how he would have prevented this shooting.

Should the 85-year-old mother have had a 9mm hiding underneath the couch cushions, just in case someone in her family went berserk? Should the wife have been wearing her sidearm at all times, hiding her Smith and Wesson under her marital pillow, just in case?

It's not just guns that kill people. It's our wild west, macho moron mentality that kills people. It's the NRA that kills people, by propagandizing and filling their members heads with lies. It's a nation that is obsessed with protecting the second amendment at any cost, while ignoring the fact that the first amendment is slipping away before our very eyes.

This afternoon a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was shot up by a gunman who killed six people before he was shot by police. This is being called "domestic terrorism" by the police. Dr. George Tiller was executed in his church by a fetus worshipping terrorist. A gun nut would tell us that we should all be armed to the teeth at church.

We aren't safe in our churches or our homes. How many guns will it take to make us safe?  And is that the kind of world we want to live in?