It’s time to acknowledge that human beings have, deep down inside, tendencies towards competition and aggression. Fortunately, people have, to a large extent, learned ways to channel those tendencies into directions that don’t hurt society as a whole and that can even help society overall.
For example, the tendency towards aggression can be focused towards playing and winning in sports or even watching many types of sporting events. I’ve never been a boxer, for example, but I can appreciate seeing “artists” like Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring or powerhouses like Mike Tyson in his prime taking down opponents.
These tendencies may even drive people’s participation in competition shooting which I think is a healthy channel for those tendencies to move into.
Unfortunately, there are people who haven’t learned how to control those tendencies, haven’t learned how to harness those tendencies to drive toward friendly competition or to professional achievement, and when that is the case, unfortunately, tragedy can be the result. Paul Sacca writes,
Chaos erupted at an illegal “fight club” in New York, which resulted in teens being shot and 13 people arrested, police stated.
Officers from the Suffolk County Police Department’s Seventh Precinct responded to a report of possible gunshots fired around 6 p.m. Sunday at the Brookhaven Aquatic Center parking lot in the hamlet of Shirley in Long Island.
Once police officers arrived, they discovered that a “scuffle had broken out among several people who were attending an unauthorized fight club event,” the Suffolk County Police Department told Blaze News.
The Suffolk County Police Department said one of the participants in the alleged fight club “brandished and discharged a blank-firing gun during the scuffle, which injured a 17-year-old male and a 19-year-old male.”
The two teens were rushed to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Now, I’m glad that the injuries were not life-threatening. Let’s be honest, though, why would anyone think that brandishing a firearm at a fight club would be a good idea?
My answer is that they haven’t been taught gun safety and that they haven’t been taught the value of life, both their own life and the lives of others.
And one thing that I can definitely say is that gun control wouldn’t have stopped this incident. Why? Because gun control is already in place where this happened (Long Island, New York), and I’d be willing to bet money that the person who had the firearm didn’t have it legally.
