I’ll start off by, once again, saying I don’t like guns; at
all. That said, if you want to have a gun, or, for some ungodly reason, guns, in your house, go right ahead. All
I ask is that you use them responsibly, and I know most gun owners do that. But it’s the few that aren’t responsible, the
ones that leave guns around children or use guns for something other than
shooting; those folks are spoiling it for all y’all.
Out in Oregon, Jon Andrew Meyer Jr. was visiting a friend’s
apartment. After sitting on the couch for a while, he decided to get up, and
use the assault rifle he’d brought with him as a kind of crutch. The gun went
off, spraying bullets through the ceiling of Karen Hancock’s apartment,
wounding her, and killing 5-year-old Alysa Bobbitt.
Meyer told investigators the gun went off accidentally; a
gun used as a crutch. His lawyer says Meyers had been assured the gun was not
fully automatic so it was perfectly acceptable to use to help him to his feet.
Meyer is being held on $250,000 bail on charges of manslaughter, assault and
unlawful possession of a machine gun.
A machine gun crutch.
The little girl and her mother were visiting friends in the apartment,
but it is unclear what Meyer was doing there and why he felt the need to bring
an assault rifle with him. Court records indicate that his fiancée had kicked
him out of her place, and had gotten a restraining order. Meyer listed his
current residence as his sister's home.
After the shooting Meyer’s fiancée,
Victoria Kohout, told authorities that he was a "big teddy bear," although
her petition for the restraining order called him an "unpredictable drug
addict" who had threatened her with a gun, and threatened to burn down her
house, slash her tires and break the windows on her car; it was noted that Meyer
had four guns.
This is the gun problem in
this country; that we allow people to own guns who don’t know how to use them,
or use them for a purpose for which they aren’t intended: a crutch. This is the problem we have with guns in this country; that anyone
can own a gun, use it in a reckless way and shoot two innocent people, killing
one of them.
