We need to see the images of murdered children to understand the toll of our gun obsession

I’m a gun owner. I own pistols, a rifle and shotguns. I’m not that into them, really, and haven’t fired any of them in probably 10 years. I also think I should have the right to own them, within some bounds of reason.

At Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, 19 children and two adults were penned up like cattle and slaughtered with a military assault weapon by a mentally unstable 18-year-old. To call it horrific is an injustice to the innocent victims of an American gun culture devoid of reason.

We can’t turn our heads away this time — again — as we have done since the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, after the mass shooting at Thurston High School in Oregon, or after Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

That’s why, if the grieving families gave their permission, they should show the photos of the crime scene. They should make sure every voter sees them.

Witnessing a death by gunshot and actually experiencing the aftermath of a violent death forever change our perspective. As a young person, I used to hunt with my father, as many sons do. It was on these formative outings that I was imprinted with the images of blood streaming from the noses of animals as they made terrible noises before dying.

I lost my stomach for all that decades ago.

That doesn’t mean I’m anti-hunting. I’m not. And I’m also not comparing human life to the lives of animals. I am, however, suggesting that witnessing a violent death makes us a party to it. Taking in the full impact of what guns can do strips away the safe distance from which we learn of mass killings in sanitized versions told and retold in the media.

I have hunted ducks and deer. I hunted grouse and rabbits. I hunted doves and squirrels. My father was an army expert rifleman and an enthusiastic hunter, and he was keen on making me one, too. I don’t blame him. I tried to get my kids into fly fishing.

I remember shooting a small bird in Brainerd, Minnesota, in 1972. I hit the bird in the eye and it flopped to the ground, dead. Blood streamed out of the eye socket onto fallen leaves, and I wept and felt sick. I pretended to be interested in hunting for a few more years, but I wasn’t.

In the same vein, most people aren’t interested images of people killed by gunshots.

Oh, I know. You don’t want to see them.

They didn’t show President John F. Kennedy’s brains being blown out in the back seat of a limousine on national television for years. There were still photos in Life Magazine, which were horrible. But seeing the Zapruder film itself — in motion — was exponentially more shocking.

There weren’t dead birds in that Uvalde classroom. There were dead children.

It is very likely that there were backpacks and books and drawings spattered with the blood of babies.

There were probably some dead kids by the door, too, killed while trying to flee to the safety of their homes and loved ones.

I am sure there is a massive amount of blood, brains, hair and other human tissue sprayed all around on the floor, the desks, the chairs, and everything else in those classrooms. I cannot imagine what the scene sounded like as the bullets flew and ripped into the children’s bodies.

Can you?