Guns in America

I agree with people who believe that law-abiding people should not have to exert extraordinary efforts to protect themselves from people who would harm them with guns. It is fairly obvious that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Part of this “people need to defend themselves” rhetoric comes from the NRA and its surrogates. And it’s easy to understand why: the NRA gets most of its support from the gun manufacturers. So, it’s logical that everything the NRA would propose or support would lead to the sale of more guns (putting armed guards in schools, one of the NRA’s recommendations, would result in the sale of millions of guns).  The NRA also bends over backwards to get children excited about guns, and doing other things to promote the sale of guns. If the NRA would pay all the costs related to putting armed guards in schools, then I might see its recommendation as something other than self-serving. But the NRA has not said it would pay the money required to implement its recommendation; the NRA has not put its money where its mouth is.

Gun control laws that affect people who commit or would commit crimes with guns will not have any impact on people who use guns for sports like hunting or target shooting.

Neither the President nor activists like Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly want to reduce the enjoyment that law-abiding gun owners (including the Kellys, who are gun owners) get from having guns. Their focus is on implementing more effective ways to keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them, by closing background check loopholes and taking other steps, and making minimum punishments for committing crimes with guns more severe, to make people who would commit crimes with guns think twice about committing those crimes. Wayne LaPierre today, testifying before Congress, clearly demonstrated that he does not understand how solid background check policy would affect would-be “bad guys” with guns. It is unfortunate that the Executive Director of the NRA does not understand how an ironclad background check policy would deter “bad guys” from buying guns, but, well, that’s the way it is.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution clearly addresses keeping and bearing arms as part of keeping a well-regulated militia. It does not say, simply, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” 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 13 words before the comma should not be ignored. Also, the types of guns that people had access to when the Constitution was drafted and amended shot one bullet a time and took five minutes to reload. Semiautomatic handguns or rifles that someone who can pull the trigger once a second with a gun fitted with a bullet magazine that holds at least 50 bullets, did not exist when the Second Amendment was written.

In the United States, we have Police and a National Guard and an Army, and this is why we do not have militias (organized and trained brigades of citizens with arms, charged with maintaining the security of a free state). Groups of people or individuals who use their guns as if they were Police officers are called vigilantes.  And there are laws against vigilantism.

I don’t think that killing is suddenly a problem. But the fact is that gun-related deaths in America dramatically outnumber those in countries with effective gun laws and severe punishments for gun-related crimes. And mass killings are occurring more frequently than they have before, if one looks at the continuum of history.

It is true that guns by themselves do not “cause killers.” But the easier it is for people who should not have guns to get them, the easier it is for killers to use their guns to kill or injure people.

Adam Lanza, alleged perpetrator of a mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, should not have had access to guns. But the fact remains that he did, because no one wanted to risk putting laws into effect that could be portrayed by the NRA or others as infringing on his mother’s Second Amendment rights. And despite being a skilled gunwoman, she was the first person he killed.

We in the United States have more legal controls and regulations over ownership and operation of cars than we have over ownership and operation of guns. This is more than a little out of whack.

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