Do you think it might be time to have another national
conversation about gun control?
When Gabby Giffords was blasted and all of those innocents were killed
in Arizona, we gave it the old college try. The NRA and gun rights advocates came out in full force against
anyone who would even consider that it might be vaguely possible to get even a
little control of the weapons and ammunition offered to absolutely anyone, at
any time, for any reason. If
someone came out publicly for some form of gun control, or at least not
allowing guns into the hands of nut jobs, they were called unpatriotic. To consider the 2nd amendment fallible was like
saying the Founding Fathers could have been mistaken and to too many of the
self-proclaimed patriotic, The Founding Fathers = GOD. The Constitution = BIBLE. Truly. Don’t
you mess with my constitution now!
I am not one of
those people who think the founding fathers were infallible. They were plenty fallible. Who wants to live in a world where it
is legal to own another human and make him/her do your bidding? About one third of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence owned slaves, including two of the three writers of
the Declaration. Thomas Jefferson himself
owned around 150 slaves. Who
believes the Constitution is infallible when women had no rights to vote or own
property? The Constitution was
written by white, male elitists who could not have foreseen the changes to come
two-and-a-half centuries later.
They just didn’t see it coming. They couldn’t have.
I checked
out the 2nd amendment to the constitution. Here’s what it says, "A well
regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right
of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The context is pretty important
here. America had just fought with
a superpower of the times. To win,
they had to use local militias.
The founding fathers were scared of a ruthless, authoritarian
government. Today, we do not need well-regulated
militias. And the militias we have
today are not regulated at all.
They are just plain scary.
Gun rights advocates reliance on the 2nd amendment simply
doesn’t make sense in terms of militias – which is what the amendment was
intended for.
Another aspect of context is the weaponry we are talking about. Back in the day of our forefathers, a
rifleman was lucky to be able to shoot once or twice a minute. The guns were single shot muskets. In the recent Colorado shootings, the
killer used an AR15 assault rifle.
With this gun, he could shoot as many times as he could pull the trigger
– 50-60 times a minute. And he had over 6,000 rounds of ammunition.
Try defending the
2nd amendment to the families of the tens of thousands who die each
year in America from firearms.
Really. I’d like to hear a
convincing argument.
Convince the victims at Columbine High School where 12
students and a teacher were murdered and 21 others were wounded that
we should have the right to bear practically any arms we desire. Or tell it to the victims of the
Virginia Tech massacre where 32 people were killed and 17 were wounded. Explain our rights to bear any kind of
arms to the families of the victims at the University of Texas at Austin in
1966 where 16 people were killed and 32 wounded.
According to the Center for Disease Control
(CDC)
In the year 2007
Homicide with a firearm: 12,129
Suicide with a firearm: 17,348
Death by accidental discharge of firearm:
721
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_were_killed_by_guns_in_America_last_year#ixzz21a95pRDx
Predictably, the
argument about gun control will heat up again, although I have serious doubts
about anything substantive changing.
The NRA spends millions each year on lobbying efforts to be sure that we
all have the right to own and bear arms.
After the
shooting in Aurora last week gun rights advocates claimed predictably that if
others in that crowded auditorium were armed, someone could have shot and
killed the shooter before he could have shot and killed so many others. That’s not
very likely because the shooter was covered in body armor. So, unless the well armed bystander was
shooting with armor piercing bullets – it wouldn’t have helped.
From the NY
Times (.com): With a few keystrokes, the suspect, James E. Holmes, ordered 3,000 rounds of handgun
ammunition, 3,000 rounds for an assault rifle and 350 shells for a 12-gauge
shotgun — an amount of firepower that costs roughly $3,000 at the online sites
— in the four months before the shooting, according to the police. It was
pretty much as easy as ordering a book from Amazon.
When I buy Heidi’s allergy medicine at the drugstore, a photo ID and
signature are required. My
information goes into a database to make sure that I am not purchasing an
unusually large amount that could be used to cook up meth. I get it. That doesn’t bug me.
It makes sense. Does it
make sense that a guy could buy 6,000 bullets online and it not raise any warning
flags? Anywhere?
He also bought head-to-toe body armor and a high capacity drum
magazine that allowed him to shoot his assault rifle 100 times without
reloading. No record forwarded
anywhere. No background
check. No notice to law
enforcement. At all. Gun groups have been saying that more
restrictions would not make the nation safer and that they would restrict our
constitutional right. Ah yes, our
constitutional rights. What about
the rights of those people killed and wounded in that theater? Are they not guaranteed by the same
constitution?
The freaky part of the argument to me is the stuff from people like
former Arizona senator Russell Pearce who wrote last Saturday - “Where were the
men of flight 93???? Someone should have stopped this man,” he wrote. “…All
that was needed is one Courages/Brave man prepared mentally or otherwise to
stop this it could have been done.”
And that’s not all… “Lives were lost because of a bad man, not because
he had a weapon, but because no one was prepared to stop it.” This opinion echoes the ideas of the
National Rifle Association – the more guns out there, the more lenient the gun
laws, the less gun violence there will be. I’d like to see some proof of that.
No, Mr. Pearce, lives were lost
because of the weapons. If that
killer only had a knife or a sword or even hunting rifle or a pistol, this
tragedy would have been so much less.
Listen, we have free speech in this country. And we should.
But one is held accountable for yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded
theater. That isn’t free
speech. That is lunacy. That is just wrong. So… isn’t it wrong for someone to be
able to buy an assault rifle, a shotgun, two pistols, 6,000 bullets and
hundreds of shotgun shells, magazines that hold a hundred bullets each, and full-body
protective armor? Without a
background check? Without a
waiting period? This guy paid
extra to have some of his orders expedited for God’s sake!
I don’t know. Maybe it’s
just me, but isn’t that just a little too much “freedom”? Isn’t there a line a little closer to
sanity we can draw about the types and amounts of weapons we can buy in our
country? Now that we are several
news cycles away from what happened in Aurora, the conversation is already slipping
away. Already gun rights advocates
are breathing a sigh of relief about this moment of scrutiny passing.
We shouldn’t let it pass.
OK, if you have put up with my rant, here is your dessert. Thanks for reading.
