Raybon Kan: Bring the purveyors of death sticks to account

Little good comes from letting the general public arm themselves. Photo / 123RF

The NRA promise of the good guy with a gun, has yet to pan out. On the contrary, the good guys with guns - police - seem to kill a lot of blameless people. It's almost as if the gun itself is the hazard.

How are gun manufacturers not being sued into liquidation?

Their product, used as designed, causes death and injury, and trauma both physical and mental.

Second-hand smoke can bring down a cigarette company - so how about the toxic emissions that spray from the business end of a military grade weapon?

That's some poisonous second-hand smoke alright.

These emissions don't just increase the chance of cancer, over a period of decades. Cause and effect with bullets is so rapid, to view it would require a slow-motion camera.

Arms manufacturers should be put out of business, or forced to limit their business to governments for use by armed forces.

While we're at it, governments that allow untrained, unvetted civilians to own these death sticks, to the menace of the general population, should be held liable and punished.

What would happen to a council now, if they approved an asbestos roof? Hey, while you're at it, let your kids sort out the wiring - they'll have fun!

Woody Allen once said about the Holocaust: "Records are made to be broken."

The record (well, the modern record) death toll this week in Las Vegas, will be surpassed.

If you chart a graph, it's likely to be surpassed within 12 months.

Then watch that graph angle upwards, once Americans start bearing arms in the form of the household rocket launcher, or the domestic cluster-bomb.

Ultimately, there'll be the port-a-nuke - sold as a deterrent - and safety, security, or whatever it is that guns provide, will be complete, as we all get protected under the impervious dome of a mushroom cloud.

How many good guys with guns do you want at a concert? Would Glastonbury be safer if only everyone had a gun, and the perimeter had towers with snipers? Sure, there's other ways to kill lots of people. But let's at least force the terrorists to think hard, and not be able to buy off the shelf.

And don't get me started on how governments make it difficult for more governments to own nuclear weapons. Goes without saying: the more fingers that have access to nuclear buttons, the more risk there is they will be used. Plus - the governments that want nukes, are probably the last people who should have them.

But I'm appealing to reason. And preaching to the sane. Here in New Zealand, we've heard of countries that don't worship universal gun ownership.

To many Americans - and I mean enough to elect Donald Trump - geography stops at countries they want to wall off; or countries they've invaded.

And appealing to reason is a waste of time. There is real evil out there. People who plan the massacres - and don't call them insane, because planning requires sanity - and even people who call these massacres hoaxes. People who've made death threats to the parents of children killed at Sandy Hook, for supposedly hoaxing. These people are sphincters all the way through. To argue with them, is to let the trolls win.

They talk of freedom, but the land of the free has more people in prison than any other country. And just try getting on a plane with 110g of toothpaste.

Their system is poisoned. And the seeds of destruction were in the founding document.

That 2nd Amendment probably looked smart at the time, but it didn't anticipate a weapons industry that dreamt of weaponising the populace like Apple wants people to buy phones.

In fact, how long before the gun manufacturers start saying the gun you need this season is the one with Siri, and AI? (Cue the Terminator being hacked.)

But why expect a perfect eternal document from farmers without plumbing, who thought it fine to own slaves? It's religious fantasy to even think they could spell out rules for the world we live in. They couldn't anticipate flight, let alone aircraft security.

But - hunting! Deer! Rabbits! Possums!

Look, let's iron out the issues. But right now, the issue is the status quo.

And the real problem is wealth and power: the anti-gun lobby is so much weaker than the people who sell them and buy them.

The lobby in favour of guns, is cash-rich, and they own weapons. The people against guns, are often not in top lobbying form, being somewhat hampered by grief, bereavement, or recent gunshot injury.