Grandson of TV’s Miss Sweetie Pie gunned down in St. Louis. (AP)

“St. Louis police say they found Andre Montgomery dead at a home Monday night. A second man was taken to a hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds.
Police say that after someone shot Montgomery, the second man ran upstairs to help him. A third man who was in the home saw the second man carrying a gun and shot that man because he feared for his safety.”

So.
A guy invites some people in his home.
Judging by the way in which they interact they don’t know, or at least don’t trust, each-other.

Somebody – not necessarily from among the invited guests, shots the host.
Somebody else – presumably alerted by the noise, draws a gun and hurries to assist the victim.
A third person, fearing “for his safety”, draws his gun and shots the good Samaritan, simply because he was carrying a weapon.

Is there anything to be learned from here?

OK, by somehow removing all privately owned firearms in America, personal safety, on average, would be somewhat improved. But since something like that would be very unlikely to happen let’s concentrate on something more plausible.

How about taking grater care about who enters your home?

And something else.
Ever since reading about this I cannot stop thinking about the similarity between cars and guns.

Both are tools and both are dangerous. Yet almost everybody has the right to buy one.

But no-one is entitled to use a car without a license while so many people advocate that everybody should be allowed to carry guns, everywhere.

37 000 people dead and 2.35 million people injured or disabled as a consequence of road accidents. Per year.

32 000 people dead by fire arms. Per same year. 60% of them being suicides while roughly 34% are classified as homicides.
On top of this another 67 000 people are injured, per year, by fire arms.

Some could say that there is not any significant difference between the two situations and, as a consequence, a carry permit would not change much.
Are you sure about that?

Currently most guns do not follow their owners when they leave their houses – for various reasons. This is why I’m afraid that if more and more people would chose to carry their weapons, things would become a lot more complicated.

Not because people are bad or ill intended.

Simply because most ‘civilians’ are not trained to asses dangerous situations in an effective manner nor the necessary skills to use their weapons safely.

You see, defending your home – everybody else but you and your family becomes an enemy in this scenario, is very different from trying to help in a complex setting. When people might freak out at the sight of yet another gun.

That’s why not all those who own a gun should ‘drive’ them around without a license.

After all, how safe would you feel when driving in a country where no driver’s license is necessary and where DUI is not forbidden?