What can you prevent?
Can you figure out who's crazy and who is not? Well, no. It can be hard to tell, especially if someone is crazy and also smart. Or if someone is crazy and has no access to health care.
If you could figure out who is crazy, would you be able to accurately assess who is crazy and violent and who is just crazy? No.
If you could single out the people who were both crazy and violent, would you be able to enact restrictions on their access to weapons that actually kept them from obtaining them? No, that stuff never works.
Could you make guns illegal? Why yes, yes you could.
Yeah, and don't give me that - Australia did it, and if there were ever a country more testosterone-soaked and frontier-oriented than ours, it would be Australia.
The fact is, if this kid hadn't had a gun... you can't kill 30 people with your bare hands and the worms in your brain. Bombs are hard, and require more organizational skills than most mentally ill people possess. Even the Unabomber only managed to kill 3 people. If my little stalker in the 80's had had a gun, he might have shot my sweet protective friends (Rudy, Chip, Dan, etc., I am still humbled), and all our lives would now be ruined.
And this is saying nothing of the everyday violence that permeates the criminal trades. It's hard to believe that there are compelling arguments for free ownership of guns that trump the mortal and economic cost of gun violence in this country.
On the other hand, the fucking Supreme Court today says that "government has a legitimate and substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life." Go fetuses! To hell with pregnant women and college girls! Our friend at VA Tech would have gotten in trouble for performing a life-saving medical procedure on a woman which would have killed one fetus, but he could legally buy all the guns he wanted.
Not everyone has good impulse control, and impulse is all it takes to kill a person when you have a gun.
(AH, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here. I know I'm not going to change your mind, and in fact, I think that if guns are legal in this country, you should have some.)
I apologize in advance for the length here:
ReplyDeleteHistory has shown us what happens to people in countries where the government starts confiscating firearms, machetes, knives, and other weapons from its citizens (e.g. Germany, Armenia, Russia, Rwanda, China, Uganda, etc.). The 2nd amendment is in place to protect us (regular citizens) from our own government (fed/state/local) should our government abandon the constitution. I know many people complain about living under The Big Bad Bush Regime, but you’d think these same people would be embracing the 2nd Amendment in order to protect themselves and their loved ones should the storm troopers of the regime come kicking down their doors.
I don’t have the answers though and I’d be wary of anyone who claims they do. I am all for gun ownership because I think defending my life, and the lives of my loved ones, is a fundamental right. Every single gun owner I know, and believe me I know many from all walks of life, owns a gun for personal protection. People seem to forget about people like us in the media frenzy. They have so many people convinced that all gun owners psychopaths, rednecks, and religious zealots.
Should the storm troopers of the Bush Regime start knocking on our doors and rounding up liberals, free-thinkers, artists, and/or sodomites (like me), you and your family are more than welcome to come over to my house because I've totally got your back. Seriously. Hell, look what happened to all those people in New Orleans. When the power is out and you can't call 911, what are you prepared to do to defend and preserve the lives of your family members? I don't even think it would take a natural disaster in Baltimore. I think a prolonged power outage, for whatever reason, would be enough for people to loose their minds. On a good response day, it still takes the police twenty minutes to get to my house. So for me, gun control is a steady hand.
You're right though. We'll have to respectfully disagree. You're a wicked smart woman and that's why I like reading what your thoughts are on the issue. I just wish more people could have this discussion in the context of reason and not emotion. Emotion always seems to end in personal attacks on character and I'm a lover not a fighter.
Can we please hug now? ;-)
The original intent of the 2nd amendment was to preserve the right of the individual to arm themselves for matters of security. personal security, national security, etc etc...
ReplyDeleteI believe that we should have the right to bear arms. Why? Because you NEVER know when you'll need to defend yourself against your own government. yesterday, a giant step towards toltalitarian rule was taken. We need to perserve that right, and be responsible about it.