I cannot hear an argument over guns where before long, one or two of the people end their defense by pulling out the same platitudes that surfaced just after December 14, 2012.... Apparently, there is nothing new anymore. The same arguments have now gone on for over 100 days, and we are into their fourth month....
The proposals are in legislators hands.
But over the course of that argument, there was wisdom on both sides. And to be honest, there was foolishness on both sides.
A. In regards to making every gun purchase require a background check, the NRA failed across the board to defend why doing such is a bad idea. In the end logic was not on their side.
As long as one convicted murderer awaiting sentencing can walk into a gun show and buy a weapon and kill, our regulations are too loose.
The NRA lost this one. Now their only argument in use is this: if you vote for it we will destroy you... A threat, not an argument. Such a retort may benefit their short term needs, but in the long run it must fail because it runs against society's interests. Sooner or later, mandatory background checks have to happen.
So Background checks are to be a sure thing.
B. Next, banning assault rifles. The NRA has some facts here. Assault rifles are not used in very many crimes... In fact the only crimes they are used for are mass murders. Like Newtown. Like Aurora. Like Tucson. Almost all mass murders were committed by assault rifles.
This begs the question: do we or don't we want to ban assault rifles for mass murderers? Most mass murderers are not previous criminals. They are good boys who flip and go bad. Allowing every one to own a weapon that is only used for mass murder when one flips, is society's option. Although sketchy, there is evidence that during the previous ban of assault weapons, the number of mass murders went down. Furthermore, the biggest callers for a ban on assault weapons are our men in blue, those we hire to protect us from crime. On the front lines they understand that their survivability probability, goes up if the person shooting them has a one shot rifle or pistol, and not a 1000 rounds per minute weapon. And this is the point. Shouldn't we side with our police over those wacko's who own considerable weaponry, and one day, just randomly get pissed off?
Few people are killed by assault weapons. True. But those that are, are our children, aunts and uncles and loved ones who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. " Hey, who wants to see a movie?"
C. Which brings us to clips. The argument against large capacity clips as in the 100 rounds in Aurora, is that when a psycho killer has to reload if anyone is left standing, they can bring him down. A girl would be alive in Tucson today if the reload had occurred at bullet 15, instead of 30... Again, the NRA states that these are trifling murders that need to be ignored compared to the national death rate. The opposition says, sorry NRA. To us, every life is precious. We'd like to keep our daughters alive too , thank you. Most Americans would rather have someone's son or daughter as their lifelong partner, than marry an assault rifle. To most normal people, living people are just more fun to be around than guns, and our priorities of who needs our protection, should reflect that.
True. Banning large clips will not affect the national death rate that much. But it will change the death toll each time a member of the NRA goes whacko, and initiates the sequence beginning his life-long dream of living his own personal random killing spree....
When you have something that is deadly and dangerous, yet serves no helpful or productive purpose..... you get rid of it. Done deal! There is no reason to have these clips around and getting rid of them (at least in the future as the mass amounts recently bought get used up), should also dry up the possibility that 100 shots will get fired into people before a rogue gunman can be tackled. Tackle him after shot 15 and save lives.
Again the NRA has not come up with a good enough reason why these should continue to be available to everyone. The NRA's ammunition has through intelligent argument been reduced down to their threat of retaliation and that threat, has now lost all of it's logical underpinnings. What is left is nothing more than what gets said by a bully to a chump. Don't vote for this good piece of legislation or we will ruin you; over a hundred days there has not been shown a good argument otherwise.... That may be the reason extremely weak-kneed, cowardly, chicken-hearted republicans will vote for the continuation of future mass killings. There certainly is no logical explanation for the illogical cover that the chicken-hearted Republican party gives to the NRA. Republicans only do so because they are too cowardly to stand up to any threat.
D. Finally the notion of safe school zones. After much argument back and forth, I have yet to see how designating an area to be a safe school zone will ever work, unless it is protected by people bearing arms. If one chooses to designate any area as a safe zone, yet does NOT have armed people like TSA agents forcing everyone to remove their shoes, empty their pockets, and ban all cell phones in order for one to enter, you are asking for trouble. When you designate something as a "safe zone" and have a known threat that wants to exploit it, you need something like the TSA to keep them out. Airplanes are designated "safe zones".
Of course the smart method would be to tax the wealthy as much as is necessary so that every school district can afford to hire enough congenial policemen covering every property of every school during school hours. After all the wealthy are so rich. Why should anyone's children have to suffer only so the rich can continue get even richer? That's ridiculous. The wealthy don't need more money. The NRA and Republican notion of voting for a few words on a piece of paper supposedly to punish someone a little harder after the effect (when in all probability they will be dead anyway), instead of legislating a proper level of taxation which could have prevented that effect from ever occurring, is wasteful and makes one wonder whether that Republican even considering it truly lives on this planet. Especially Tea Party Republicans who are always quick to write up a new paper law to take care of real world problems which could be easily fixed on the ground, if only the wealthy were simply required to pay their fair share....
That said, nothing new on this topic now ever gets argued. Opinions appear to be set in stone. Gun blogs hardly raise an eyebrow anymore....
So it is time to pass the bills that are good....
A. Background checks
B. Banning Assault Weapons
C. Banning High Capacity Clips
And not pass the school law.