Assault Rifles
I am not a member of the National Rifle Association and have no particular brief with the organization. It does have millions of members and no matter what they say, the vast majority of those members simply happen to have a passion for instruments designed to kill. So be it.
But whatever you think of the NRA, its leaders do have a point each time there is another public horror like the one this week at the Washington Navy Yard: It is almost never NRA members or normal, otherwise law-abiding folk who perpetrate these tragedies.
And that brings up an interesting aspect of the gun debate and everything that goes along with it.
When we compare ourselves to other “civilized” Western nations, anti-gun forces point out that we have a gun homicide rate far above any of those other countries. Pro-gun forces point out that we are the only one of those countries whose constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.
Now we can debate the specific intent of that “well-regulated militia” passage of the Second Amendment all we want, but the basic fact is that there are more than a hundred millions firearms in this country, and they are not going to disappear any time soon. This means we have to deal with the situation not in theory, but “on the ground.”
Gun advocates rightly point out that they are not the ones causing the crime – when was the last time you heard career criminals or mentally ill would-be mass killers testify on Capitol Hill? – so why should they be denied guns when they are not the problem? And they’ve got a point.
Where they don’t haver a point is resisting efforts at background checks and then blaming everyone but themselves when the severely mentally ill or criminally insane are not properly screened. My questions to them, and us, and everyone else is: How much do you know about the mental health system in this country and are you willing to ante up to make it better? Because it is going to take a lot of money and a lot of resources if you seriously want to make a difference in identifying the potentially dangerous.
It is easy t see in retrospect how Aaron Alexis should have been singled out before this past Monday. But it’s the same as normal crime-solving. Any predatory crime solution looks obvious in retrospect. That doesn’t make it any easier to catch these guys, though.
I wish I – or anyone else – had a simple, or even a logical answer to American gun violence, but none of us do. Yes, it would be nice if we could ban assault weapons and keep guns out of the hands of those who would abuse them. But it hasn’t happened and as long as there are so many guns in this country, there are going to be a lot of violent gun deaths.
I would only hope that those who favor gun freedom at least have the integrity to own up to the issue the same way that those of us who drive cars or watch football do. For the freedom of being able to drive wherever we want, a certain number of thousand people per year are going to die no matter how safe we make cars or make new traffic laws. Every year, a certain number of young men are going to die or be injured from playing football and a larger number of older men are going to suffer brain damage and neurological deficit from having played.
We’re not going to stop any of these activities. But as with football and automobiles, let’s at least be realistic enough to acknowledge and understand the price of the ticket.
My problem with democrats and our useless govt is that you fund the military to stay ahead and out of war – not to fall behind like every other country who finds themselves war torn. You certainly do not force our society to become more brutal if u can’t handle it now. With the rusty sometimes ammo less guns.
My point is that if you take away the guns – you force another way – and that way may be worse. Why do those countries use chemical weapons. Be careful what you wish for.
The whole gun debate is a waste of time. Wimps choose to see the problem as steel determines evil. That if u take steel away – problems are minimized or solved. The ugly truth is this – while evil is in the hearts and minds of people – I will try to plan ahead – foresight- all these businesses and schools getting shot up – if they all planned ahead – nobody gets a bag in. After seeing chemical weapon attacks and things I call brutal – a gun doesn’t bother me. The anti gun people do not understand that drives – desires – good or evil will happen – regardless of available steel. Plan ahead – minimize what u can as far as that. This person whom shot the navy yard probably wasn’t evil – just sick as he willingly lost his own life and knew that going in. Mental illness or thought patterns developed bc he was alone, desperate or continually rejected in some way. The simple solution to that is just a welcoming society and not a ‘Hollywood’ type of society – what’s in/what’s not
Hello Mark and Cornerstone, this subject is near and dear to me as someone who has learned the hard way some essential facts of life: if you are intent on harming someone tonight and you are presented with an unarmed man and an unarmed woman, who do you pick? Now put a weapon in the woman’s hands. I don’t believe the NRA pretends for one minute that the 2nd Amendment is protected by, and protects, us without a dear cost. It, however, is a civil right given Constitutional cover, unlike a driver license. Who deeply resent the costs of the 2nd Amendment are those who have deluded themselves into thinking the 1st Amendment costs no lives. The pen–pixels–is mightier than the sword–gun. That remains profoundly true, as it spills much more blood, selectively across a broad area, rather than in one battle in one place where the blood can pool visibly. Those who worship the 1st Amendment, warts and all, want no prohibitions on it, no restrictions, no conditions, no moderation of any kind. Well ok, what’s good for the 1st is good for the 2nd. We trust the citizens with the 1st without question, the far deadlier right, but not with the 2nd, the far more essential to personal safety, for one. Because history has proven, repeatedly, that without the 2nd the 1st readily perishes.
America is still the grand experiment and only those who pretend that she is immune to the forces that stripped other peoples of their civil rights are eager to either jettison the 2nd as fast as possible or to cripple it such that it is effectively worthless. As far as having the same ordnance in the citizenry’s hands as our military, I remind us of the people of Viet Nam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Where technology and resources are lacking, ingenuity and heart compensate. Our guys are super lethal but clearly the enemy combatants aren’t laying down and giving up either. And in the case of our military fighting its own citizens, do we really think that would hold together start to finish? No, it’s not pro-2As who deny that protecting the 2nd Amendment costs lives. Pro-2As however also acknowledge that it saves lives… and democracies.
Lastly, we agree that mentally/emotionally dangerous should not have access to a lethal weapon. No knives, no cars, no chemicals, all lethal weapons in the hands of someone wishing to make them so. How do we determine who is unfit? Unless you’ve had a government bureaucrat, or a medical proxy, look at you with a jaundiced, cynical eye, trying to determine if you are fit to own a gun, you have no idea how frightening it is to be put where it is actually up to someone who knows nothing about you, who doesn’t care about your right to defend yourself successfully against an armed attacker, who simply has a checklist to follow and who will do what they can to get you to testify against yourself such that it can be documented and interpreted as they wish, according to the political winds of the day. Until that happens to you personally, you have no idea how very noble the idea is (mental health background checks), but how horrible would be its execution, at least by us at this stage of our evolution. I still think our founding fathers really meant for the 2nd Amendment to be regulated such that it would be freely accessed by all citizens of age, with free uniform training by law enforcement so stronger bonds are formed between guardians and guarded, with a gun in every home, with its ownership and use freely discussed openly among all without fear of oppression or scorn. The exact opposite has instead taken up residence to varying degrees across America. At least with the NRA around, at least, that cannot take over without a fight.
Every time I make these points among those who consider it the dissenting opinion, it usually means I am no longer welcome. I hope that doesn’t prove to be the case here, but whatever you choose so it will be, no hard feelings. Goodnight.
You are completely welcome and we appreciate and value your views. I also agree that every right has a cost and that we must be aware of that and try to understand it.
It is also true that if someone is willing to give up his own life to take another’s, it is difficult to stop him, regardless of his choice of weapon.
Thanks for weighing in.
Thank you Mark, I appreciate your gracious hosting.
If the NRA were smart, instead of tugging backwards trying not to set any precedents each time there is a piece of logical legislation, they would jump in with both feet and fund it. Lord knows they can. If they spent one percentage of what they pay off politicians every year, they could help put systems in place to facilitate background checks to weed out the violent and mentally ill. Then they would truly be, no pun intended, bullet-proof for culpability. But their tradition is to not give an inch, even when most of the public disagrees with them and they own enough politicians that they get away with it.
I do tire of idealists who somehow think we could ever clean the country up of weapons. Even if we had a magic wand to wave that would beam them up to the next galaxy, we’ve not done anything to stem the flow or arms under the borders.
On the other hand, I tire even more of those who think having a handgun somehow could protect us from the government taking over our lives and that it gives us the ability to revolt. For that to be true, we would have to have the same weapons the military has, including fighter aircraft and ships.
So the outer fringe of both sides are highly delusional.
I think you’ve hit every nail on the head, Cornerstone. The NRA could certainly help their own cause by policing their own “industry,” it is unrealistic to think there is a “magic” way to rid the nation of guns and erase two hundred years of culture, and if anyone thinks that owning guns is going to “equalize” any dispute with the government, they are creating a fairytale. Your comments, in my opinion, are completely realistic and devoid of either PC rhetoric or wishful thinking. Thanks.