The Suicide Gun

Hey all. I really wasn't getting anything out of writing for a while. Much more enjoyable (and stress relieving) to do other things. But then I realized that I'm a much more interesting person when I practice letting the silly/crazy ideas out of my head, and since few people in the real world listen (and even fewer archive them in a remote location for future reference), I'm going to try to get back into the habit. The tendonitis from how often I'm behind the mouse is definitely not going to make this easy, but whatever.

For starters, I wanted to share this fairly popular web image (perhaps a photoshop, perhaps not) with people.

I used to believe that old NRA slogan, that "guns don't kill people, people kill people". I did this because there are many harmful inventions and substances out there, and in communities where there are predominantly good, moral, responsible people, weapons of all sorts can be held without fear of crime or violence. I still believe that legislating to fill the void of personal responsibility in this country is doomed to fail, no matter what subject we are talking about.

But yeah, I also used to think there was nothing implicitly evil about guns. A gun is a device made of metal. It has no intention. If someone really doesn't want to ever shoot a gun, they could logically use it as a paperweight or something.

Then I saw this picture. The feeling I got the split second I saw it proved me wrong. Inanimate objects do have "intentions". Maybe you'll get the same feeling when you click it.

(It's a safe picture, no gore or violence, or anything gross or wrong. It is a picture of a gun, sitting on a table, and nothing more - I swear)

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/9418/gun20for20suicideon8.jpg

If the image expires, just use google to find a "suicide gun" and click "images" on the upper left of the screen, next to "Web".


So as I was saying. Personal responsibility, and decency? Still at the heart of the matter. But clearly, there are some devices we almost wish we could uninvent. Some machines are just evil.