Guns kill people

Anti gun tirade.

One of the favored arguments of those opposed to private ownership of firearms is that guns kill people. However, while it is true that firearms were originally developed as a weapon of war, this argument ignores the fact is that firearms are inanimate objects that are simply not capable of taking action on their own.

Therefore, they require a conscious human operator with a clear objective in order to fire a projectile. Consequently, the truth is that it is not the firearm that kills people but, instead, the human operator who makes a conscious decision to take a life. The firearm is merely a tool to that end

So if the above is true, why do we have lawmakers and anti gun lobbies trying their best to ban guns? Or trying to make it practically impossible to get one.

We already have character checks, criminal record checks, competency checks in place to try weed out those who may inclined to violence or have some mental disorder that makes them unstable to actually handling a firearm.

When we were immature young boys leaving school, with tons of testosterone flowing through our bloodstreams, we were good enough to be armed with an assault rifle, handgun and hand grenades by the government. We were deemed good enough to go to war with the weapons provided and were hailed as heroes if we killed the enemies of the state. Those that didn’t shoot faster or more accurately than the people shooting at them, died. Survival was as simple as that

Now we have the government trying to say that we no longer have a right to protect ourselves or those around us by owning a firearm for self defence. It would seem that the government thinks that criminals are now going to throw their firearms into the sea,rivers or dams because the rest of the population has had to surrender their firearms? I seriously dont think so!

If ones looks at what the government proposes to do by saying that “self defense” is no longer a reason for owning a firearm, and that your current license is only valid for a couple of years, then you would not be in a position to reapply to renew your firearm license. Then you are illegally in possession of a firearm and would forfeit it to the state. You would also not be compensated for your previously legal firearm.

The government managed to disarm all the commandos as well as all police reservist without too much trouble. This has now created a veritable open season for criminals in areas where people are no longer protected. And the police have admitted that they are not in a position to stop crime, but can only react to crimes already committed. Plus the majority of armed police actually failed their competency tests for using a firearm!

If the proposed bill does go through, then the police and Gun Free South Africa who are pushing for the stringent new laws must also accept that the police and all the security companies that carry firearms aren’t doing it for self defense.  They would be carrying firearms to attack defenseless people with impunity. 

 

Killing Fields of Africa

 

While riding to work I do a lot of musing about so many things I hear, read or see that by the time I get to work I have worked out an entire blog. The only problem is that once I am at work I barely touch sides with meetings and JAD sessions taking up most of my time thus leaving me very little time to prepare a blog and upload it. But I suppose I owe my soul to the company and need to give them their pound of flesh J

In the past South Africa was in the forefront of conservation of our wildlife. Nature reserves were established all around the country and the management thereof was of such high quality that South Africa was one of only a handful of countries where the number of animals increased to a very healthy population.

And it is this that now turned our country into a target for poachers. The current focus has been on the slaughter of Rhinos for their horns. The retail price for a large Rhino horn can easily turn a person into an instant millionaire and there is a ready market out there to ensure that a network is set up to smuggle the horns out of Africa to the Far East. The concern now is that as the price of ivory keep increasing that the poachers will increasingly start focusing on slaughtering the herds of Elephants in South Africa.

photo by Ross Warner

 

In an article by Sheree Bega (Star newspaper) mention is made of between 25 000 and 50 000 elephants being slaughtered in 2011. In 2012 the conflict in various African countries has been the excuse for wholesale slaughter of thousands of Elephants.

As the Elephant population is decimated in the rest of Africa for the tusks that they carry, the poachers are increasingly starting to move south. There has been an increase in poaching in Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe and soon it will spill into South Africa.

Ivory is already being called “white gold” because of the high prices being paid for it.

Poaching used to be done by various populations purely as a means of surviving but those days are now gone. The estimated value of animal trafficking now exceeds R80 billion (R1 = approx. $8) which makes it a thriving business.

Once our population of Elephants has been wiped out the next animal on the list will the Lion population. No amounts of educating people that the various dried parts of a Lion are not of any medicinal value, will the killing of Lions stop.