I just can't leave it alone it would seem, yet I seem unable to find the words to voice the frustration I feel, so I'll flog the horse one more time. I got off track some last week, as is evidenced by Randy's very interesting and researched response on female serial killers.

A disturbing number for sure, but there is something else I was aiming for, and with your kind indulgence, I'll give it another shot, so to speak. With deference to Randy's research, the U.S. Bureau of Justice report from 2005 indicates that 93.5% of murders involving multiple victims were perpetrated by men. 6.5% were women. So the female serial killers are out there, but we men certainly dominate the field.

And I'm just overwhelmed by the sheer numbers here in our fair country. An older statistic, one from the 90s, listed deaths from handguns. Great Britain, 33; Sweden, 36; Switzerland, 97; Japan, 60; Canada, 128…the U.S., 13,200. Thirteen thousand, two hundred people dead from handguns, or to please the National Rifle Association, dead at the hand of people wielding handguns. The handguns were not at fault of course; guns don't kill people, people kill people.

And to put some value on the number of people killed in the U.S.by firearms in 2005, I want to consider a couple of towns in Nebraska. If I were to buy a couple of really good machine guns and some body armor, and take on say, Norfolk, I could kill all 23,896 men, women and children there. I'd be tired, but still have work to do. I could skip Hadar, but load up for Pierce, kill the 1,774 people there. Then head on up to Osmond and kill 796 people, make short work of Foster (92), level Plainview, 1,353 and still have to drive over on Highway 20 to Randolph (1,768) and kill everyone there.

That would put me up to 29,587 men, women and children killed, just a handful more than the 29,569 killed by "people wielding firearms" in the U.S.in 2004. People would probably be upset with me. So they might send in the Marines or the Army. Somebody with more guns. I would still be able to wound about 3 or 4 divisions (assuming 10 to 20 thousand people in a division…it varies), before they would take me out, if I were to wound the 64,389 people wounded by "people wielding firearms" in the U.S. in 2004.
I know we have a knee-jerk reaction to gun control in this country. I have a disturbing interest and fondness for guns. But step back for just a minute and think about it. In Canada, there were 816 people killed by "people wielding firearms." In our country there were 29, 569. On a percentage basis, 14.24 per 100,000 versus 4.3 per 100,000.

I know we love our guns. Do we have to love them more than Norfolk, and Pierce, and Osmond, and Foster, and Plainview, and Randolph, and all the men, women and children living there? How large of a stack of bodies does 29,569 men, women and children make?

Randy is right; we do kill in other ways. If the shooter at Van Maur were armed with a knife, or a blunt object, or were killing by strangulation it seems reasonable to assume fewer would have died. Nothing I can think of that is easily available as a firearm gives me the distance from my prey, nor the ability to kill as many as quickly.

OK. I think I got it off my chest for now.

Next week something different, I promise.