License to Kill

Surgeons need years of training and supervised hands-on practice before they are licensed. Even barbers need weeks of training and supervised practice before they bare licensed. As we fondly recall, drivers must pass the dreaded written and road tests before they are licensed. Those licensing requirements are for the public safety. You don’t want a bad surgeon slicing you open, a bad barber amputating your ear or a bad driver colliding with your vehicle while figuring pout the mysteries of the K Turn.

Yet all you need to buy a gun is proof of age and a clean criminal record. Thank you, NRA and compliant politicians. But what harm can an untrained gun owner cause?

Lloyd Amarsingh, age 28 with a previously clean criminal record, was stopped at a traffic light in Darby, PA at 8 AM last Friday. This was one of those notorious “long lights”. Lloyd took the opportunity to pull out his 9 mm Glock and unload it. The gun “accidentally” fired and killed the driver of the vehicle in the adjacent lane. Lloyd panicked and sped off through the red light. Bad idea, Lloyd. The busy intersection had surveillance cameras. Lloyd’s car was all over police scanners and he was arrested shortly thereafter. Charges of third degree murder and “possession of an instrument of crime” ensued. “Running a red light” was not cited.

Lloyd remains incarcerated in lieu of $250 K bail. You really shouldn’t have driven away, Lloyd. Cops hate it when they have to chase you down.

2nd Amendment fans don’t want to hear this, but if surgeons, barbers, and drivers must be licensed and learn the safety features of their tools in the process, shouldn’t gun owners as well? If Lloyd was trained, he would know that you always have the “safety” on when you unload a weapon. If that training was required prior to licensing, maybe that poor soul at the stop light would still be alive and Lloyd would not be in jail.

Of course that would be an infringement on our precious 2nd amendment rights.

By Ed Dufton