Crosswalks and guns | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

With the light in my favor as I walked in a crosswalk, I still had to dodge a driver who wanted to beat me through the intersection. Car versus pedestrian? I knew the car would be the winner.

As I walked, I reflected on the George Zimmerman trial. He is charged with shooting an unarmed teen. Man with a gun versus a teen with an iced tea? The gun-toting man was the winner.

It seems if one carries around a gun one expects to use it. In Some Personal Views, American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote:

"We have a runaway system. The more guns are readily at hand, the more they are used by people with evil intentions. And as more people with good intentions feel they must be armed in self-defense, the more the criminal will use his gun because he believes his victim is armed. …

"There is only one way we can break this vicious circle — by very strict gun control. And as the first step … we must stop thinking of guns as a means of defense. … That is, we must shift our emphasis away from people to guns as a prime source of violent danger."

Ann House

Salt Lake City