Failing To defend Yourself

THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY three hundred million guns in the United States, slightly less than one per person, enough to protect most of us, leaving only a few million folks vulnerable to mass murderers, people who are vulnerable by choice, crazy presumed liberals risking their lives by virtue of their unwillingness to defend themselves by packing heat. Thirty percent of American households contain a firearm within. In those households containing weapons, the suicide rate is two and a half times greater than in firearm free households. And yes, the additional suicides are indeed, almost without exception, completed with the in house weaponry. Guns don't kill people, people kill people, so say our conservative colleagues. Accordingly, nothing kills people, other than people. Nothing other than human beings ever does anything. Fishing poles don't catch fish, people catch fish, unassisted. Rifles don't shoot deer, people shoot deer. Cars are not responsible for car crashes, bathtubs have nothing to do with head injuries, and slick floors have never caused anyone to fall. Cars don't kill cats; cats kill cats. Cigarettes don't kill people, an effective advertising message could proclaim; people kill people. (if only J.R. Reynolds had thought of this). Cancer doesn't kill people, and neither do incoming drones. Cancerous cells and their proliferation is, it seems, a personal choice. We have chosen where to stand, in the way of the drone. Thus, we see that every human death is either a suicide, or a murder. This notion disregards the concept of environmental influences, and places full responsibility for our actions squarely upon ourselves. It seems that all we do, we do without assistance or external factors, such as material objects. there are no accomplices to human behavior. An appropriately American dogma, the apex of rugged individualism. Tornadoes don't kill people; guess who kills them? And yet, strangely, somehow, we allow ourselves to be influenced by our environment, and this results in our death; we push aside the broccoli, and go straight to the cake. We choose soda pop over pure sparkling bottled water, perhaps because its cheaper, perhaps because its laden with sugar. Diabetes doesn't kill people. We know who does. In his famous book, "The Myth of Sisyphus", Albert Camus opens with the assertion that the only real moral choice is whether to commit suicide. Camus failed to comprehend that, no, there is no real choice; we are all condemned to commit suicide, or to be murdered by a person using a gun or other weapon as a motif, because, no matter what the circumstances, we all choose to kill ourselves, unless we are murdered first, since only people kill people, people only kill themselves, and each other, because if someone points a gun at you and pulls the trigger, and the gun is loaded, you have either been murdered, or have failed to dodge the bullet, or to defend yourself.