Guns, murder and daily temperature readins

15 December 2012

Yet another shooting tragedy in the States.  How do the families of the dead get over such an incident?  The families at Dunblain in Scotland are still suffering after all this time; they just do not get over something like this.  On BBC News 24 a clergyman said pretty much what I feel about guns.  In effect it was that guns are amde for one purpose and one purpose only - to kill!  In America of course the situation in complicated by the Constitutional right to bear arms. 

When that was included in the Constitution there was a need for all men to be armed.  It was a wild and savage place already occupied by native Americas, the red Indians.  They were sat on land that the white settlers wanted and the one sure way to get them off was to shoot them.  Is it any wonder that they fought back?  Add in the native wildlife of the land and the conditions were set for gun ownership to become enshrine in Law. 

But now of course the Indian peril no longer exists and the majority of the people live in towns and cities so are unlikely to come into contact with wolves, or grizzly bears or mountain lions.  Yet the gun lobby and a large part of the population still demand the right to bear arms.  How many more of these acts of violence does it take for them to see sense and to ban private owners ship of firearms?

Of course you don't need a gun to kill someone do you?  twenty one years ago yesterday 18 year old Nicola Payne went missing in Coventry.  She has never been found and now her mother has come to the conclusion that her daughter in now dead.  Of course, without a body we will never know how she died, and by this time we still won't know.  And here's the problem; as long as there are men and women who get some sort of grim satisfaction in killing other people, then killings 21 years ago in Coventry and yesterday in the States will continue to happen.  These killers can't be legislated for.  The killers may live quietly in their communities before they erupt into violence.  Maybe we should be glad that such incidents are so rare while we all grieve for the deaths of so many children.

It looks a nice day out there today.  Jan has to go to the Hussy yet again today and we will meet up in town later.  Yesterday we all had rain, to we had dry sunny weather for once.  The light is good for talking photos so as well as carrying Pip-pup into town I shall find a way of having my Sony with me too.  It should all be good fun trying to work it out.  But did you know, that today in Tuscany in 1654 a meteorological office began taking daily temperature readings for the first time?  Reading that record could be interesting.

Now here's a strange photo ... 

it's a cloud formation I saw from the back garden of our bungalow some years ago.

And a funny for today ...

The Three Wise Men arrived to visit the child lying in the manger.
One of the wise men was exceptionally tall and smacked his head on the low
doorway as he entered the stable.
"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed.
"Write that down Mary," said Joseph
"It's better than Derek."