"The Blade Itself Incites To Violence"

This quote by the ancient blind Greek poet Homer seems to have been lost in the contemporary United States over violence. It makes a nice sloganesque response to the tired line "guns don't kill people, people kill people." So, after Trayvon Martin and Bo Morrisson were murdered by gun-wielding people, this picture started making its rounds.


No, but two did.
If justifiable homicide claims have tripled in florida then the odds that some of these (admittedly arbitrary) number HAVE killed someone in the last year.
If we update Homer's quote to "The Gun Itself Incites To Violence" it becomes more relevant today. Yes, as George Carlin once said "you could probably beat a guy to death with the Sunday New York Times" but that would be a lot more work than pulling a trigger, and much less likely to happen accidentally.
The truth is, yes a gun is a tool. But it is a tool with just one use.
I am speaking as a former Army Tanker who has shot bigger guns than most civilian gun enthusiasts.
Excuse me, "weapons." There is little hope of instilling any feeling of empathy for gunshot victims in those civilians, other than for each other's phallic symbols.
Another "truth," "responsible gun owner." This is not a binary condition. I am a responsible driver, but every once in a while I make a mistake. Even "gangbangers" in the ghetto manage not to shoot their balls off most of the time. Are they responsible gun owners? Oh, you mean, white people who are around guns and have taken classes. Okay. But familiarity breeds complacence. I was around guns all the time in the army and took classes. So it wasn't an uncomfortable experience. But when I saw a guy at the movies putting on his coat a little while back to cover the 9mm on his belt, I freaked. In the army weapons were a tool of the trade, at the movies, a gun is... what exactly? Did this fellow think he was gonna get in a shootout in Mequon (one of the richest, safest suburbs in WI)? Or was it because he was black in a pretty white place?
Ahhh, there it is. And no, I saw the gun first because I was waiting on a bench outside the theater. Seeing a gun carried by anyone is enough to make me anxious, it is just something that is out of place in civilian life. I am not going to rattle off any cliches about why creeps might want to carry a concealed (or not so concealed) weapon in public, but am I going to have to feel this anxious everytime I step out of my door from now on?
"The Gun Itself Incites To Violence" I can cause you harm if I choose. All other concerns seem secondary and I do not want to save a society that thinks this is moral or ethical, and especially if it is legal.