The headline was extracted from an opinion piece in the Sunday December 15, 2013 print edition of the New York Times written by Nicholas D. Kristoff titled: “The Killer Who Supports Gun Control”.
The piece quotes from a blog written by a convicted murderer named John Lennon (yes his real name but no relation to the Beatle) who is currently incarcerated in Attica prison in New York state. From the article:
“I do take responsibility for the murder; I’m sorry for taking his life, and all the life he could have had,” Lennon writes in an essay that he sent me out of the blue and that I’ve published on my blog. “But without a gun, I would not have killed.”
Lennon says that only “that perfect killing machine” of a gun assured that the murder would succeed.
“Could I have stabbed him?” he adds. “Strangled him? Bludgeoned him? If I had done so and he hadn’t died, why would that have made me less culpable than I am now, a man who swiftly and cowardly shot another man to death? A killer nonetheless, I hash these things out, in my head, in my cell, in Attica serving 28 years to life.”
Lennon does not deny that people will still try to kill each other without guns. Indeed, he knows that firsthand, for he writes about being the target of a revenge attack:
“He sneaked upon me in the prison yard like I sneaked upon his friend in a Brooklyn street. When I turned, I saw his arm swing for my neck. I weaved. Then I felt the piercing blows, as he gripped my shirt and dug into my side. Pressured by the blood-thirsty crowd, he stabbed me six times because I shot his friend to death. The ice pick didn’t do the job, though. He got away with it because we were in a blind spot of the yard, and I never told on him. Prison ethics. While my assailant’s intent was clear, the weapon he had access to was insufficient. Therefore I lived.”
“It’s clear that the only reason I’m alive is because my assailant didn’t have his weapon of choice,” he adds.
This is what the all or nothing supporters of the Second Amendment want to ignore…despite their mantra that people kill people…they want to ignore that using a gun makes it far easier to accomplish…using a gun makes it nearly instantaneous…using a gun allows anger to rule…using a gun is painless to the killer…using a gun is far more likely to be fatal to the victim.
I’ve just spent the past hour looking for an interview piece I saw early in 2013 when an NRA apologist was defending the right to own guns after the Sandy Hook tragedy…but I can’t find it…I am sorry. At one point in the video he brings up the attack on 22 students at a school in China, how the attacker used a knife instead of a gun, proving the meme that people kill people, not guns. The interviewer kept asking the apologist how many people died during the attack in China…but he just kept on with his indefensible rant…after repeating the how many died question several times…the interviewer finally in exasperation says: NONE…no one died.
I will grant you that I have never encountered an incident where a gun came walking down the street and killed someone…I will grant that I have never read a story where a child was killed while a gun was cleaning itself…or how a NFL player took one in the thigh while walking past a gun on the stairwell in a night club…and yes, I will accept that people kill people but they are much more efficient at it with gun in hand! And there is no reason we shouldn’t make it more difficult to kill…no reason at all.
Let’s close with one more quote from John Lennon the murderer:
“…why shouldn’t we tighten measures to keep guns out of the hands of people like me?”