Will Common Sense Prevail in Gun Debate?
Thursday,
December 20th, 2012
Baton
Rouge, Louisiana
A SANE DEBATE
ON GUN LAWS?
The tragedy in the small village
of Newtown, Connecticut has sparked yet another nationwide debate on the pros
and cons of gun laws. And without giving
the families even a few days to mourn, a political frenzy has broken out with
both sides claiming the killings were the fault of either too little or too
much gun regulation.
Within hours of the massacre,
The Gun Owners of America issued a statement saying: “Gun control supporters have the blood of
little children on their hands. Federal
and state laws combine to ensure that no teacher, no administrator, no adult
had a gun at the Newtown school where the children were murdered. This tragedy
underscores the urgency of getting rid of gun bans in school zones.”
On the other end of the spectrum, a number of
more liberal publications followed Highbrow Magazine’s lead with headlines that
blared out: “Stop the Insanity: It’s Time to ban Guns and End the Violence!” The story was similar to wide-ranging commentary
saying that “The eventual passage of
fresh gun restrictions would at least send the right signal that the gun lobby
is not invincible and that millions of Americans want and demand anything that
will at least potentially head off the next rampage.”
Since I host a nationally
syndicated radio program, I listened all this week to the competition. Now talk radio in the South where I live
carry’s a much more conservative slant.
This is die-hard gun country, where caller after caller spit out the
mantra that “they will have to pry away my gun from my cold dead hands.”
Gun supporters point to
guarantees for gun ownership in the Second Amendment of the constitution. But
the most recent Supreme Court decision on guns, the 2008 Heller case that challenged the District of Columbia's gun
limitations, listed several areas where gun restrictions would apply. Writing for the majority of the Court,
Justice Scalia concluded: “From
Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely
explained that the right (to keep and bear arms) was not a right to keep and
carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Nothing in the Heller ruling, Scalia said
should be read to cast doubt on "longstanding prohibitions on the
possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the
carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government
buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale
of arms."
Friends from New York were down
to visit recently and asked why anyone would want or need a gun. I patiently explained that hunting was a way
of life in many parts of the country.
Hunting for ducks in the Louisiana marsh, or coveys of doves in a cut
over north Louisiana cornfields with my son and daughters has been a rewarding
family experience for many years.
I have given each of my children
a pistol after spending time with them on a gun range. Why?
Let’s say you are driving along a lightly traveled highway late at
night, and your car has engine problems.
You pull off the side of the road and a car pulls up behind you. Several intimidating thugs get out of the car
to “offer help.” Would your pistol make
a difference? I think so. A few shots in the air and a stream of
obscenities would, in most instances, scare off a potential threat. Wouldn’t it
be better to be a defensive aggressor than a passive victim?
On the
other hand, reasonable checks and balances for those possessing a gun should
not be that onerous, assuming some common sense is applied when putting such
regulations in place. Those favoring no
regulation will tell us that guns don’t kill people; it’s people who kill
people. But do those of such mindset say
the same thing when a drunk driver kills an innocent bystander? Cars don’t kill people, drunks do?
That
argument just doesn’t fly anywhere in America.
You certainly have a right to own and drive a car. But with some restrictions. States require a driver’s license, safety
belts, crash safety standards, insurance, and a host of other rules of the road
that most drivers assume are reasonable.
But all
these proposed tighter gun laws really will have little effect on a deranged
killer who has serious mental issues.
Identifying disturbed individuals and seeing that proper care is
available continues to be a serious problem nationwide. Here in my home state of Louisiana, the
Governor is shutting down the only major mental health hospital in the state
because of “budget priorities.” Does it
take another serious shooting for the powers that be to wake up to the serious
growing mental heath problems of a growing number of disturbed individuals?
Texas’ quixotic governor Rick
Perry proposed his own solution this week.
Arm all the teachers, or any other worker in harm’s way. Since there have been several serious Mall
shootings, I would assume that the governor would arm all employees there,
also. In Rick Perry’s world, the Mall
would offer Uzi’s and smoothies.
Over one hundred fifty years ago
(1857), British historian Thomas Macaulay made this dire prediction for
America: “Your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by
barbarians in the 20th century as the Roman Empire in the 5th century; with
this difference, that the Huns and Vandals that ravaged the Roman Empire came
from without, and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within
your own country, by your own institutions.”
There
has to be some reasonable compromise to let those of us who own pistols and
rifles for hunting and for protection to continue to do so unabated by
government interference. But automatic
assault rifles designed for human killing?
We’ve reached a tipping point. Banning
assault weapons doesn’t limit my freedom.
No, it gives all law-abiding citizens less sense of fear from crime and
terrorism. It just makes common sense.
*******
“A little less conversation, a
little more action please…”
Sung by Elvis Presley
Peace
and Justice
Jim
Brown
posted by Jim Brown @ 7:52 PM
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