Here are three hypothetical questions for you to ponder:

-would you rather be murdered by a stranger or someone who is supposed to be a loved one?

-slaughtered in a big city or a small town?

-inside your own home or in broad daylight?

All of these situations have transpired. Yes, I have posted about a current blight plaguing the United States before. No doubt, I will write about this topic again for at least one of the websites I pen postings for.

Are you aware the first 180 days of 2023 make the first half of this calendar year the deadliest in the regard I am writing about since statistics have been maintained on the subject beginning in 2006?

Twenty-eight mass killings have occurred in the US during the first 180 days of 2023. All but one have been by gunfire. The other? A case of arson in which four people died in a home in Monroe, Louisiana on March 31, 2023. These mass slaughterings remain a constant cycle of unparalleled violence in the country's history. Their combined victim count? 140 deceased, to date.

How often have you heard these words spoken before, "Something must be done to get guns out of the hands of people who might become violent and dangerous?"

I am solidly of the notion guns, which are inanimate objects unable to do anything by themselves, do not kill people. Nor are they inherently bad. (Boy, the differing opinions those comments are sure to generate.) It is the hand that gun is in that murders. I am not aware of any documented instances where a gun picked itself up, aimed itself at somebody, and fired its trigger to kill that person. However, I totally agree that some course(s) of action need to be adhered to in order to cease these senseless slaughters.

Perhaps it was having the innocent blood of three children, and three adults, shed at the private Covenant Presbytarian School in Burton Hills, a neighborhood not too far from where I reside in Nashville, an occasion I detailed in You Didn't Ask...But-#9-Covenant, that has hit the closest to home for me? It is rather difficult to wrap one's mental faculties around these mass murder events.

Mass murders are defined as the killing of four or more victims, not including the slayer(s), within a 24-hour period of time. The Associated Press, which granted often much of what they say must be taken with a certain grain of salt, and the USA Today, partnered with Northeastern University, tracks the database for mass killings.

A combined 65 occurrences of these grievous deeds have happened between the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023. Still, mass killings are considered rare in the United States and represent only a fractional portion of America's overall gun violence epidemic. Mass murders just grab the loudest headlines.

The National Rifle Association continues to maintain fierce opposition to firearms regulating, particularly against AR-15-style rifles, and similar weapons, which tend to be used frequently in mass shootings.

NRA Spokesman Billy McLaughlin said in a recent statement, "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' constant efforts to gut the Second Amendment will not usher in safety for Americans. Instead, it will only embolden criminals. That is why the NRA continues our fight for self-defense laws. Rest assured, we will never bow, we will never retreat, and we will never apologize for championing the self-defense rights of law-abiding Americans." I suppose somebody has to.

While law-abiding Americans do have the right to self-defense, the only way mass shootings will be curtailed is to keep guns out of the hands of would-be killers. Banning guns is not a viable option, nor is it one that will ever take place. Most people are at least somewhat familiar with both sides of this issue, but what should prevail?

I do not profess to possess the solution to that more than $64 million dollar question.

You didn't ask...but.