Guns = death

Agun rights article of faith holds that if everyone went around armed with a gun, then everyone would be a whole lot safer. No, what you get where guns are plentiful is Michael David Dunn killing unarmed 17-year-old Jordan Davis.

Dunn, a 47-year-old computer programmer, encountered Davis at a gas station in Florida, one of America’s most heavily armed states. They argued over rap music emanating from an SUV carrying Davis and three friends.

Dunn, who is white, fired 10 shots into the fleeing SUV, killing Davis, who was black. Dunn later said that he saw what he took to be the tip of a shotgun barrel. No such weapon was recovered.

While in custody, Dunn described himself as the “f------ victim.” As a defense, he invoked Flori- da’s “stand your ground law,” a statute that lets people open fire, without trying to avoid doing so, if they feel threatened. The same law helped George Zimmerman escape conviction in the death of Trayvon Martin.

Dunn’s story won him a hung jury on the charge of murdering Davis but secured his conviction for attempting to murder Davis’ companions because he fired as they were taking off. Facing 60 years in prison, Dunn asked his lawyer, “How is this happening?”

The answer, sir, is that you had a gun and you used it in an atmosphere in which anyone around you might be armed — in a state that empowers gun owners to shoot when they’re afraid of someone else who may have a gun. That, or you were just a hotheaded jerk with a chip on his shoulder and a gun in his hand.