Guns and Violence Misery and Death

There is an obvious correlation between the availability of guns, their indiscriminate use by people who have lost their humanity and the deaths caused by shootings.

Such was the case over the weekend in Boston where 10 people were shot and four died of gun shot wounds, including three women who were apparently minding their own business in an automobile in Dorchester.

Is there any end to man’s inhumanity to man, we wonder?

When does the day of violence and slaughter end on our streets?

Last year, Chelsea had a spate of killings that were frankly inexplicable, except to say that gunplay was responsible for most of them, that and gang bangers wanting to wipe one another out and so they choose to shoot one another.

This year has been another story, with very little gunplay compared with years past.

But what is happening on the other side of the Mystic River, in neighborhoods not so different from our own, gets the mind wandering.

If it can get so bad there, what are the possibilities here?

Here, we like to think things are under control. And they are, for the most part.

What is out of control is the ability of nearly everyone or anyone in this society to get a gun whether legal or illegal and then to get plenty of ammunition or an attachment, which turns a simple gun into an automatic or semi-automatic weapon.

Who is carrying guns besides the police these days in Chelsea? Nearly everyone who shouldn’t be carrying lethal weapons.

We must all remember that this is a society somewhat out of control, where life doesn’t mean much to many of our residents and that personal insults and battles are settled by shooting people instead of being reasonable.

No one knows what the solution is and even if a solution were found many Americans would resist tampering with the Second Amendment, which give Americans the right to bear arms.

We are left to pray that things don’t any crazier than they already tend to get.

That’s not much of hedge against maniacal behavior that turns deadly when guns are used to settle differences or to make statements.

The violent gunplay is going to continue. It is going to get worse.

All we can do is watch, worry and pray.

But a day of reckoning will one day arrive.

That time is not now.