I can’t believe I’m having to write about guns again, a mere four months after the slaughter in the movie theater in Colorado. I am writing this three days after a disturbed young man forced his way into an elementary school in Connecticut and riddled the bodies of 20 children and six adults with bullets from a “Bushmaster” semiautomatic rifle.
There’s no end to the sorrow and the insanity in the Connecticut killings, nor in the nation as a whole. Many are asking the same question I asked myself all weekend: What kind of country allows the private ownership of powerful assault weapons? In this case, the owner was a gun “enthusiast” mom who couldn’t be bothered to safekeep her weapons from her obviously troubled son. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but since the kid was obviously incapable of common sense, it behooved Mom, to say the least, to make sure he couldn’t get to the prize Bushmaster.
Common sense wasn’t just lacking in that one household, however. It’s been missing for some time from our national discussion of firearms, which is in dire need of some baseline reality and rational thinking. Hopefully, more common sense about firearms will finally arise out of the murk of grief and anger over these 20 martyred children. Who knows? This country is nothing if not unpredictable, but maybe some combination of reason and gumption will spread through the nation, at least enough to reverse our national dysfunction. I’d like to think that such a change can still happen. And no, you can’t call it anything but dysfunction when a country accepts mass murders by heavily armed nuts as a normal part of its national experience.
If you think I’m exaggerating America’s dysfunction on this deadly issue, consider that the vast majority of the world’s worst mass killings have taken place in the U.S. Or that six of the 12 worst mass shootings in U.S. history have come in the past five years. Or that on the same day as the Connecticut massacre, a teenager in Oklahoma was arrested for plotting to bomb and shoot students in a school auditorium. Or that, two days later, an Indiana man with 47 guns was arrested for threatening to slaughter people at a local elementary school. Or that, on that same day, NBC’s Meet The Press could not get one single pro-gun senator to come on the show to discuss the Connecticut massacre.
Our guns dysfunction has been in play ever since the National Rifle Association — formerly a respectable organization of hunters and sportsmen — went off the deep end three decades ago and began targeting any politician that ever voted for even minuscule forms of gun control. The NRA today is run by a bunch of exploitive bullshitters, led by professional loon Wayne LaPierre, who stays rich by scaring the hell out of its members. The NRA repeatedly tells members that the big bad government is hellbent on taking their guns (with the help of the U.N., of course) and that any gun control is a definitive first step in the government’s ploy to ban the private ownership of firearms. Sadly, enough NRA members, though certainly not all, fall for LaPierre’s paranoid ravings to keep him sitting pretty. With any luck, this recent replay of our ongoing national tragedy of mass slaughters will be the beginning of the end of LaPierre’s influence in our country.
There is no rational reason not to tighten regulations on firearms, and there’s no reason it can’t be done without trampling the Second Amendment. When the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the amendment does imply an individual right to bear arms, it also left plenty of room for governments to regulate firearms.
As Alternet’s Joshua Holland pointed out over the weekend, most gun owners are reasonable and responsible; it’s our discourse, twisted by LaPierre & Co., that isn’t. So let’s start a rational, responsible discussion about regulating firearms. Regulations that would include gun registration laws; a ban on assault weapons, which serve no reasonable hunting purposes; a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips; greater firearms proficiency requirements for gun buyers; raised penalties for crimes committed while using firearms; and regulation of the storage of weapons.
OldJackPine, an avid hunter and regular contributor to liberal websites, noted late last Friday that there are European countries who have much stricter regulations on guns but still manage to maintain “rich hunting traditions.” No one is going to propose banning private ownership of guns, nor would that be possible in the U.S. And it’s probably not possible to keep some wacko from getting a gun if he is determined enough. But, to quote OldJackPine again, “for the sake of these victims there have to be ways to make tragedies like the one in Connecticut less likely.”
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This article appears in Dec 19-25, 2012.
I’m heartbroken by the killings in Connecticut, I have children that age, but I see that tragedy as no reason that the Government should take my rifle.
If military style weapons should be restricted to “professionals” like the police and the military because they cause too many deaths, by the same logic shouldn’t cars be restricted to professional race car drivers because they cause more deaths than guns, and shouldn’t household chemicals be restricted to trained chemists because they cause more childhood deaths than firearms? Check the CDC data for cause of death, both of those are true statements. Don’t think a madman with a stolen tanker full of gasoline can’t wipe out an entire school; do we ban gasoline tankers? If you look around, there are plenty of things within easy reach of most people, including would-be terrorists and would-be murderers that can be used to inflict mass casualties. Timothy McVay used diesel fuel and fertilizer.
Rifles in general, where “military style assault weapons” are categorized in the FBI crime stats, account for about 4% of violent crime. You are more likely to be strangled or killed with a bat than shot with an “assault rifle”. There are so few crimes with “assault” weapons that they don’t even merit a separate category. The “assault” weapons ban didn’t work last time, mostly because the wrong guns were targeted. Crime with firearms is statistically is more likely to involve a cheap handgun, either semi auto or revolver. Both can be reloaded rather quickly. Caiber isn’t the issue either, John, the .22 you mentioned in your last article is the same bore as the Bushmaster rifle.
Our forefathers prevented the government from abridging the right (the bill of rights doesn’t “grant” any right, it tells the government which rights of the people they can’t infringe upon) of the people to bear arms, used in the military sense of the word. The musket and rifle were the most advanced military arms of the day, and any capable rifleman could fire three or four rounds a minute. Arms as defined have evolved, but the definition holds, and even if it did not a skilled rifleman with a musket and a bayonet could still kill 20 people at a high school football game in just a few minutes before a panicked crowd could escape the bleachers and get out of range, so is the evolution of the gun the problem?
I carried an M-16A4 and an M-4 carbine in Iraq, and built civilian copies of them when I returned. That’s my reason, but there are many other valid ones. If I was trusted to carry one in defense of the country, at the tip of the spear, am I not to be trusted to carry one in defense of my family, or my neighbors, or my free society? The price of a free, open, and low security society is that there is no prevention from terror or criminal incidents. Except, of course, if there is an armed citizen there that incident happens.
What should we rationally do? Improve database connectivity. The lesson of Virginia Tech is that you should be able to screen for warning signs already noted. Mandate safer storage; a lesson from CT and from Columbine is that warped youth will steal guns from their family members to commit atrocities. Eliminate private sales without a dealer involved. The NRA hates it, but I can’t sell a car without involving DMV for title transfer; why should a gun be different?
Another liberal columnist where it’s clear he’s never picked up a gun. Probably wears skinny jeans and sits inside all day pasty white and never gets an exercise. These are the people calling for gun restriction, with no understanding of firearms whatsoever. Come on libby boy, explain what an “assault rifle” is to me. You can’t.
Come on Guns forever, explain to me what a rational argument is, as opposed to an ad hominem attack in which you can’t even answer the specifics of a column. You can’t. And actually, yes, I have “picked up a gun,” as you put it. I just don’t base my whole identity on it, unlike some pathetic fucks.
John, true to Liberal form, is incapable of engaging in active debate. He immediately resorts to name calling and even profanity. Brilliant.
Guns Forever and Mr. Obvious obviously need to re-read the column — or, my guess, read it all the way through even once. Must have missed the part where it says that most gun owners are responsible and reasonable. Or the part where it is made clear that there’s no call anywhere for a ban on all guns. Maybe you could try to figure out how the NRA, which only cares about getting kickbacks from the firearms industry, has bamboozled you into being so paranoid to suit their financial interests. Here’s my question, Mr. Obvious, profanity or not: Why do you, and other rightwing jacklegs, even read this column? I’m serious, I’m really curious about that, and have been for some time.
John, I won’t speak for the “jack-legs” or “wingnuts” but as a conservative I read your column and other liberal columns and follow liberal leaning blogs like Huffpost to keep abreast of the topics liberals are focusing their energies on and to hear the arguments they are using. Why would I listen to Fox? I know what they are going to say. Extreme viewpoints, left and right, tend to be emotional and short of facts and spend a lot of energy name calling, so I generally avoid them as well. Your column is usually well left of center but your arguments are clear. You and I will seldom agree, but that is the nature of our system. Where I don’t agree with you or other liberal viewpoints, as on an “assault” weapons ban, I occasionally try and point out what I feel are the relevant and factually supported counter points to authors and their readership, and where there is common ground, as there is on background checks for private sales, that’s a signal that we should both push for action from our legislators.