This gun control debate has me scratching my head. I'm not
against gun control but I'm not completely for it either. I know for a fact
that if they outlawed all guns tomorrow, criminals would still manage to get
their hands on any type of weapon they wanted to possess. Look at what a great
job they have done with drugs.
The sad but simple truth is that our government is totally
inept at controlling what people can and can't have. The only way they can possibly
get assault rifles off the street (and I'm only talking about NEW assault rifles
here) is for them to stop the arms manufacturers from producing them for
civilian use. The military should be required to destroy all assault rifles it
takes out of service.
There is a deeper question than taking assault rifles away
from people that just want to hunt or target shoot or use them for home
protection. What many are saying in a roundabout way is that they want them in
case the government turns against them. After all, isn't that what the Second
Amendment is all about? There is plenty of precedent of governments turning
against its own people. I wouldn't be the last American to say it couldn't
happen here. The way the government has been behaving as of late, starting wars
across the globe and manipulating the media, the last thing I'd like to see is mandatory
gun registration.
Assault weapons are a fact of life. Criminals are going to
get them the same way they get them now, out of the trunk of an illegal gun dealer's
car. Of course they should run background checks at gun shows. It's idiotic
that they don't do it now. Some of the arguments made both for gun control and
against gun control are imbecilic. Do you know how quickly you can change
magazines? It takes about 5 seconds. What's the difference if someone has a
twenty round magazine or a ten round magazine? The best way to make that
argument null and void is to prohibit the manufacture of large magazines. That
still won't stop someone hell-bent on destruction from taping two ten round
magazines together.
I know that many of my progressive friends think that guns
are terrible things. Still, you have to consider that with approximately 350
million Americans in this country, if only 1% of them are crazy (and I'm being
cautious here) that's 350,000 crazy folks running around. Having a rifle of a
handgun or a 12 gauge shotgun within arm's reach is a prudent measure in today's
world, sad to say.
One way to reduce the carnage that's seems rampant in this
country is to stop giving these freaks so much media attention. We don't need
to know every facet of their life, who their friends were and where they went
to school. The more attention the media gives them, the more it appeals to
other nut-jobs that want to get noticed. Look at the reason Mark David Chapman
gave for killing John Lennon. "The District Attorney
said Chapman committed the murder as an easy route to fame". I don't know John
Lennon's middle name, but I know Chapman's.
Look, I don't care for the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, I don't
particularly like Sen. Diane Feinstein either, and they both are way off the
mark. There must be some way to have a reasonable debate on this. Have
background checks done on everyone that purchases a gun, anywhere where guns
are legally sold. Ban assault weapons? Well it's a little late for that; there
are more than enough to go around. This is the most heavily armed nation on Earth.
Don't let these incidents be the reason we enact ridiculous unenforceable gun
laws that the government could use to "selectively" bring their most annoying
dissidents to trial. Try writing the networks and telling them that you don't
really give a good goddamn where or how these monsters that kill little
children were raised or what their names are. Another good idea is that once
they are found guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, they should just be
eliminated like a bad disease.
I know"the sanctity of life" and all that. Still, kill kids
and all bets are off. The more these events are hyped, the more of them you'll
see. You can blame the media for part of that. The media and the morbid
curiosity Americans seem to possess, like being fixated on a train wreck.
