Guns Galore

The more guns, the more shootings, the more massacres. In the United States a gunman sprays a hundred rounds from a rapid-fire assault rifle into a crowd of schoolchildren: 5 dead, 29 wounded. In England a crazed man slaughters 16 people with an AK-47 assault rifle. In Canada a man who hates women goes to Montreal University and kills 14 of them. In San Salvador guards patrol supermarket aisles with shotguns, and shoppers are required to check their weapons at the door.

More women are now buying guns. They flock to the pistol and rifle ranges, squeezing off round after round of ammunition into life-​size target posters of men, putting bullet holes right between their eyes. Special designer pistols for women are selling well.

And don’t leave out the children. One case of many: A ten-​year-​old boy “loaded his father’s high-​powered hunting rifle and shot to death a girl who had bragged that she was better than him at video games.”

The domestic arms race is on. Where will it end? When will it end?

Guns​—A Way of Life

THE long row of red tenement houses teeming with life is back to normal. The unmistakable sound of automatic and semiautomatic gunfire no longer shatters the quiet. The flashes of fire with each burst of the weapons no longer cast eerie shadows in the night, no longer help light up the dimly lit streets. There are holes in the ancient brick fronts where bullets have buried themselves deep in the masonry in gun battles past and present.

Police and medical examiners know the streets well. An arsenal of weapons with enough firepower to arm a small police force has been confiscated​—the aftermaths of murders, suicides, accidental shootings, and robberies. Mailmen and trash collectors refuse to service the community for fear of being caught in a hail of bullets. Children are kept inside their homes, but some are still gunned down as bullets fired from deliberately or poorly aimed guns penetrate windows and walls and ricochet through rooms.

If you live in a large city, chances are you are familiar with the scenario described here, if not as an eyewitness, then as a viewer of the TV evening newscasts. In many cities shootings are so commonplace they are often not reported in the local press. Frequently, they are paled into insignificance by too many other massacres capturing the daily news in other cities or other parts of the world.

A California massacre scene, for example, made news in many parts of the world when a gunman sprayed a hundred rounds of ammunition from a rapid-fire assault rifle into a crowd of elementary-​school children, killing 5 students and wounding 29 others before taking his own life with a handgun. Europe and the United States also read the shocking news of a crazed man who slaughtered 16 people in England with an AK-47 assault rifle. In Canada a man who hated women went to Montreal University and shot and killed 14 women. Unless the death toll is staggering, most of the killings by guns, accidental or intentional, however, are seldom reported outside the city in which they take place.

The Gun Mystique

Local, state, national, and international law enforcement agencies and leaders are perplexed by the rising tide of deaths attributed to handguns and larger automatic and semiautomatic weapons already in the hands of criminals and mentally deranged people. The International Association of Chiefs of Police estimates that anywhere from 650,000 to 2,000,000 semiautomatic and automatic weapons “may be in the hands of criminals nationwide [U.S.A.]​—an army of bad guys with the odds in a shoot-​out almost always on their side,” reported U.S.News & World Report.

It is estimated that in the United States alone, nearly every other household has a gun. Although an absolute number of guns owned by Americans cannot be determined, recent estimates show that 70 million Americans own approximately 140 million rifles and 60 million handguns. “The nation’s private arsenal is big enough to supply one gun to nearly every man, woman and child in the country,” wrote U.S.News & World Report. Do you find this shocking?

In Europe too the citizenry has become like an armed camp. England is trying to come to grips with its weapon problem as more and more of the unsavory element are arming themselves to the teeth. In West Germany the illegal hoard of firearms is estimated to be more than 80 percent of all weapons in circulation. A number of these, according to reports, have been stolen from “armories of the German police, border police, German army and NATO stores.” Switzerland is reported to have the highest level of private firearms possession in the world. “Any law-​abiding Swiss may own guns, and every male of military age must keep at home an assault rifle more powerful than that used in the Stockton [California] massacre,” reported The New York Times of February 4, 1989.

A few days earlier, The New York Times reported that in San Salvador, “guns are as common on men’s hips as wallets. Supermarkets, whose guards patrol the aisles with shotguns, require shoppers to check their weapons in lockers by the front doors.” According to Asiaweek magazine of February 1989, the Philippine government “concedes that the country is awash with at least 189,000 unlicensed firearms. That, plus the 439,000 with licences, means that weapons in the hands of private individuals far outnumber those held by the armed forces, which has some 165,000 regulars. And illegal arms shipments are confiscated weekly at the international airport and on the Manila waterfront.”

Peaceful Canada, where the Criminal Code severely restricts the possession and use of firearms, is seeing a steady rise in firearm-​related offenses. At the end of 1986, there were about 860,000 registered restricted firearms in Canada. That did not include private collections of automatic weapons obtained before 1978. Said one veteran Canadian police official: “What I would like to know is why the people of Canada feel a need to have a handgun, a rifle or a shotgun.”

When the U.S. government recently placed a temporary ban on the importation of semiautomatic weapons, the results were unexpected. Frantic buyers waited long hours in lines to buy those already in gun shops around the country. “It’s like the Oklahoma land rush,” said one buyer who stood in line to buy one of the last ones in stock. These could be purchased for about $100 before the ban. On this day they were selling for as much as $1,000 each. “These guns are coming in and going out 30 a day,” said one happy store owner. “They’re buying them all, everything and anything they can get their hands on,” he said. “What they have done is put one in everybody’s home,” said another gun-​shop owner.

A law in the state of Florida, United States, has permitted gun owners to walk in public with a gun strapped to their waist or concealed on their person. It is feared by some that this will result in street-​corner shoot-​outs, reminiscent of the wild West era. One Florida State representative said: “The message we’re sending out is, ‘We can’t protect you anymore, so go get yourself a gun and do the best you can.’” And judging by gun sales, thousands are doing just that.

Why this sudden craze for guns​—some so powerful they can send bullets through concrete walls and fire 900 rounds a minute, designed for the sole purpose of battlefield combat? Some authorities say guns have a “sexy mystique” that makes them especially attractive to men. “There’s a machismo to carrying the biggest, ugliest and most powerful weapon available,” said one government official. “For men in particular, guns evoke a near mystical return to their youths,” wrote one reporter. Some banking institutions have picked up on this gun mystique by offering handguns in lieu of paying interest on certificates of deposit. Reports indicate that the promotion has become extremely popular with depositors.

Worldwide, gun sales are booming. Where will it end? When every male member of society owns at least one or more guns? Or are guns for men only? Consider some interesting facts in the next article.

Guns​—Not for Men Only

IN THE world of advertising, the masculine image of a rugged man posed with a rifle cradled in his arms has been used to sell many things. They run the gamut​—tobacco, automobiles, clothes, firearms and a host of other things, limited only by the advertiser’s imagination.

In the United States in particular, men have been portrayed as being inseparable from their guns. In town squares, statues have been erected of conquering heroes with a gun either in their arms or by their side. Even without captions, pictures depicting the wild West era are quickly identified by the low-​slung six-​shooter strapped to a man’s hip. Scores of movies have been made with the word “gun” in the titles. Television shows and theater box-office attractions are alive with the sound of rapid gunfire​—good guys and bad guys shooting it out in every conceivable situation and location. Puny men made macho with a handgun or rifle in their hand, with realistic scenes of the dead lying at their feet.

But more women are now getting involved with guns. In the last score of years, television sets have come alive with women detectives and undercover agents shooting it out with unsavory elements and winning with deadlier aim and superior firepower.

They are flocking onto pistol and rifle firing ranges, squeezing off round after round of ammunition into life-​size target posters of men and putting bullet holes between their eyes.

So it should not shock you to learn that handguns specially designed for women are already on the market and selling well. “Ladies, you wouldn’t use a man’s deodorant,” wrote one lady reporter, “so why use a man’s revolver? You want a revolver that’s lightweight, with no edges to catch your nails, a dainty revolver that still packs a punch. Maybe you want a .38-​caliber LadySmith . . . in glossy blue, or frosted sterling, with your choice of barrel lengths.” An expert voiced his opinion on what women want in guns: “A woman wants the gun to look pretty. She wants it to be a nice-​looking object that she puts in her purse. She doesn’t want it to clash with her compact and her mirror . . . A lot of women like things to be color coordinated and match. They don’t want it to look evil or vicious . . . She’s buying it for protection but, at the same time, she doesn’t want it to be ugly.”

Some of the handguns specially designed for the elegant lady are .38 caliber with five-​shot capacity and are offered in a choice of two barrel lengths​—two inches [5 cm] and three inches [8 cm]—​to fit nicely in a purse. Some come with smooth, contoured rosewood grips, and others may be fitted with pastel-​colored ones. “They’re very beautiful,” said one woman, “and, I would think, handy.” Then, too, there are new creations of purses with built-​in compartments specially made for the lady’s handgun. “A woman handgun owner without a special purse is just asking for trouble,” said one woman. “You will end up with cracker crumbs and mints in the barrel, or tobacco, if you smoke, or anything else that accumulates in the bottom of a lady’s handbag.” Some foresee the time when a woman carrying a gun will be as commonplace as one carrying an umbrella.

Their Numbers Are Growing

A recent poll has shown that between 1983 and 1986, gun ownership among women in the United States “climbed some 53 percent to over 12 million.” The poll also showed that during those three years, “some 2 million additional women were considering the purchase of a firearm.” In some women’s magazines, subtle attention is drawn to a woman’s need for protection by depicting a woman returning home to find a window broken in her front door. Does she live alone? Does she own a gun to protect herself if she is met by an intruder? A toll-​free number at the bottom of the advertisement turns out to be that of a gun manufacturer, now offering a new line of elegant handguns for women.

“These ads are like pouring salt in a wound,” said one woman. The reason is that since a great many women live alone or are single parents, they feel especially vulnerable to violent crime, often with good reason. In most large cities, rape is on the increase. Women are having their purses snatched​—many at knife point. There are assaults on women on the streets, in parking lots, and in office buildings during daylight hours. Apartments and homes, residences of women who live alone, are being broken into while the occupant is asleep. “We’d better learn to take care of ourselves,” said one woman, “because as we become more mobile in an increasingly violent society, we’re going to have to take care of ourselves.”

“I was walking home from work,” said one woman interviewed on U.S. television. “Someone just grabbed me from behind. He had a knife and he pushed me down and he grabbed my purse. Right there and then, I said I have to do something.” After applying for a permit to carry a gun and taking target practice on a shooting range, what was her outlook? “I lost all sense of vulnerability. I thought to myself, I have a gun, I’m shooting this and it’s terrific, I don’t feel afraid. With this piece of metal in my hands, I could really protect myself.”

It is obvious that this is the thinking of over 12 million women in the United States, and who is to know how many more own illegal weapons? The numbers worldwide could be staggering. Is this thinking, however, the product of much research on what the facts show? Before you go out and purchase a weapon for self-​defense, consider what police officials and statistics show.

Guns​—A Way of Death

“THEY have this illusion,” said one prominent police official, “that they’re going to point the gun at someone and they’ll be in control and when it doesn’t work out that way, they hesitate, just as many police officers will hesitate a split second, and they pay for that with their lives.” There is also this observation from a noted U.S. public-​safety commissioner: “Many people don’t come to grips with the fact that owning a handgun means being prepared to live with the aftermath of killing another human being. If you don’t actually shoot and a criminal fires at you, it is more dangerous to own a weapon than not to have it at all.”

Finally, there is this: “Even a little imagination ought to tell us that all this designer weaponry will lead to more, not less, trouble,” wrote a woman reporter​—a member of a policeman’s family and herself an expert shot. “Have women who are buying ‘pretty’ guns confronted the aesthetics of blown-​out brains? The result is not pretty. Ever seen a man with his face shot off?” Or, she asks, “could you aim for the heart?”

How quickly could you get to your concealed gun if you were suddenly accosted by an assailant? Consider her own experience: “When I was mugged​—by a crazed addict with a butcher knife—​the steel was at my throat before I saw or heard my attacker. If I’d gone for a gun, who’d have won a photo-finish?” Then she adds: “I would not dream of keeping a gun for personal protection. This is not a matter of morality; it is a matter of practicality.”

Now consider some overwhelming facts. In the “relatively rare shoot-​outs between householders and burglars that do occur, it might easily be the burglar who proves more skilled in handling his gun and the householder who winds up in the morgue,” reported Time magazine of February 6, 1989. Whatever deterrence a gun might be in the prevention of a crime, it is more than offset by other devastating factors. Consider, for example, suicides. In the United States alone, in one 12-​month period, over 18,000 people shot themselves to death.

How many of these were spur-​of-​the-​moment acts that might not have been carried out if a gun had not been available in a purse or a dresser drawer cannot be determined. Surely, however, the ready access prevented some victims from having sufficient time to think rationally and perhaps save their lives. Add the number of U.S. suicides by guns to those of the rest of the world and the total would no doubt be shocking indeed.

Time magazine of July 17, 1989, reported that in the first week of May 1989, 464 people were shot to death in the United States alone. “This year more than 30,000 others will share their fate,” Time said. The magazine reported that “more Americans die of gunshot wounds every two years than have died to date of AIDS. Similarly, guns take more American lives in two years than did the entire Viet Nam War.”

Parents who own guns must bear the responsibility for their children who use them to take their own lives or the lives of others. “The rise in suicides by young people in 1988,” wrote one newspaper, “can be linked in part to easier access to guns as more homeowners stockpile weapons to protect their residences, police said. . . . If you have a weapon in the house, there’s just a chance a kid is going to get to it someday.” “Last year [1988], over 3,000 children shot other children,” reported a June 1989 U.S. television newscast.

Parents, do you know where your guns are? One parent did, but so did his ten-​year-​old son. “He loaded his father’s high-​powered hunting rifle,” the August 26, 1989, New York Times reported, “and shot to death a girl who had bragged that she was better than him at video games.” Do you know what is in your child’s lunch box besides sandwiches and cookies as you send him or her off to school? Would you believe that it could be your gun? What were the parents of a five-​year-​old kindergartner to think when school officials notified them that they had taken a loaded .25-​caliber pistol away from their son in a crowded cafeteria, while hundreds of students ate their sandwiches, milk, and cookies?

Later in 1989, a six-​year-​old first-​grader was caught showing off a loaded pistol. That same month a 12-​year-​old was arrested for carrying a loaded pistol in school. All of this in the same school district. In Florida, a student was not fortunate enough to escape the disaster of a loaded gun in the hands of a child. She was shot in the back when an 11-​year-​old girl accidentally fired the gun she had brought to school to show her friends.

“Our little six-​year-​olds go home and almost all know there is a gun in their home,” said one school principal. “Many of them have seen the result of a gun,” said a teacher of a third-​grade class. “Maybe a father, an uncle or a brother is no longer in their house as a result of a gun,” he said. Some school systems have even found the need to install metal detectors to ferret out guns brought in by the very young, not to mention the older students! Must not parents bear the responsibility for the actions of their children, especially parents who see fit to have guns in their homes where their children can find them?

Parents may comfort themselves that their guns are concealed where their children or others cannot find them. Unfortunately, however, dead children have proved their parents wrong. Also, consider the obvious. “Well, you can’t have it two ways,” said one police chief. “If you really safeguard your gun so that innocent people in your house, your children or visitors or someone else, can’t get hurt with it, then [you] won’t be able to get to that gun for the kind of emergency that [you] bought it for in the first place.”

Police estimate that if a household gun is ever used, “it is six times as likely to be fired at a member of the family or a friend as at an intruder,” reported Time magazine. “A wife or mother thinks she hears a burglar and ends up shooting a husband or son coming home late,” said one public-​safety commissioner. ‘How, then, should people protect their homes?’ he was asked. “Perhaps the best way to protect yourself is by risking your property rather than your life. Most robbers and burglars are there to steal, not to kill. Most firearms deaths in homes are committed with the homeowner’s gun. In any case, urban residents should try to increase protection by forming anticrime ‘watch’ groups.” And, finally, the gun owners must ask themselves if they are willing to take another human’s life in order to protect the contents of a purse or wallet or a few valuables in a home.

If you are wise, you will not resist the one who threatens your life for your valuables. Your life is worth more than these.

Guns​—A World Without Them

FROM the beginning of human history, man has resorted to violence in his dealings with his fellowman. Murder surfaced in the first family when Cain slew his brother Abel. The slaughter has continued ever since​—within families, within tribes, and between nations. As the weapons became more powerful, the victims became more numerous. Stones and clubs gave way to spears and arrows, which were replaced by guns and bombs. The destruction of hundreds became thousands; today the thousands have become millions. And not just in war but also during peace. Not just by soldiers but also by private citizens. Not just by adults but also by children. Will the escalation of violence ever end? If it depends on people, the prospects are bleak.​—2 Timothy 3:1-5, 13.

Christ Jesus foretold that this would be a time when nations would rise against other nations in horrendous wars, snuffing out the lives of millions. Pestilences and earthquakes would take a heavy toll in many places. Man would be polluting the earth to such an extent that its ability to sustain life itself would be threatened​—many scientists are now voicing that fear. But man’s love of money causes him to plunge onward in his polluting rampage, and it will end only when Jehovah God himself intervenes “to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”​—Revelation 11:18.

Many scoff at such warnings and thereby fulfill another part of the foretold sign of the last days: “You know this first, that in the last days there will come ridiculers with their ridicule, proceeding according to their own desires and saying: ‘Where is this promised presence of his? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning.’”​—2 Peter 3:3, 4.

But this dark cloud hovering over mankind has a silver lining. Jesus foretold that at his presence, there would be “on the earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out because of the roaring of the sea and its agitation, while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth.” But he also said it would be a time to “raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near.”​—Luke 21:25-28.

The nations are in anguish, the masses are turbulent, and individuals are in fear of the things coming upon the earth, but it is a time of deliverance for those who are waiting for the coming Kingdom of God and the Thousand Year Reign of Christ Jesus. That will be the time for the fulfillment of Jehovah God’s promise of ‘new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness is to dwell.’​—2 Peter 3:13.

And no guns! None will be needed for war. “He is making wars to cease to the extremity of the earth. The bow he breaks apart and does cut the spear in pieces; the wagons [war-​chariots, Rotherham] he burns in the fire.”​—Psalm 46:9.

None will be needed for personal protection. “They will actually sit, each one under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no one making them tremble; for the very mouth of Jehovah of armies has spoken it.”​—Micah 4:4.

Only the upright, none of the wicked, will be there. “The upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it. As regards the wicked, they will be cut off from the very earth; and as for the treacherous, they will be torn away from it.” (Proverbs 2:21, 22) Then “the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace.”​—Psalm 37:11.

In God’s eyes violence ruins the earth. In Noah’s day “the earth came to be ruined in the sight of the true God and the earth became filled with violence.” (Genesis 6:11-13) Hence, Jehovah ended that world with a global Flood. Jesus likened the end of this present violent world at his presence to the end of that ancient one: “For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”​—Matthew 24:38, 39.

In God’s new world everyone living will fulfill Mark 12:31: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” And Isaiah 11:9: “They will not do any harm or cause any ruin in all my holy mountain; because the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea.” And also fulfilled in that new world of righteousness will be the glorious conditions described at Revelation 21:1, 4: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea is no more. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” Certainly, then no human societies bristling with guns!

None of these momentous changes for man’s blessing will be brought about by revolutionaries with their blazing guns mowing down the opposition. Rather, they will be brought about by Jehovah God through his Kingdom under Christ Jesus. So Isaiah 9:6, 7 says: “There has been a child born to us, there has been a son given to us; and the princely rule will come to be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. To the abundance of the princely rule and to peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom in order to establish it firmly and to sustain it by means of justice and by means of righteousness, from now on and to time indefinite. The very zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.”