Recently, I wrote a very caustic post to the self-righteous about the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. The victims' bodies weren't even cold, and some of you didn't want to wait to scream meaningful stuff at each other. And I called Bravo Sierra. And some of you were displeased with me.
Now that the funeral services are beginning, I believe it is time to start talking.
This is getting old.
These massacres... are going to stop.
I don't know exactly how... but the age of Gun Massacres is coming to a close.
And lets start with a message to the righteously indignant on both ends of this argument. The gun rights advocates and the gun control advocates both need to understand something.
This is not an argument to be won, it is a problem to be solved.
While you professionally indignant zealots lob talking points and zingers and statistics and bumper-sticker slogans back and forth... the rest of us are going to figure out how to do something about this crap. We aren't waiting for you to get on board. The train is leaving with or without you.
Hey gun rights advocates, guess what?
President Obama isn't coming for you.
The rest of us are.
Didn't see that coming, did ya?
Hey, gun control advocates, guess what?
We aren't signing off on your self-righteous crap, either.
Didn't see that coming, either, did ya?
Basically, a pox on both your self-righteous houses. You self-appointed experts have had literally decades to figure something out and you have done nothing but generate noise. Sit your asses down and take a nap while the rest of us actually find a solution.
Hey, NRA.
You are the most well funded gun safety organization in the world, and because of your efforts America enjoys the best gun safety record in the... oh... wait.
Thanks a pantload, NRA. Keep talking if you want to, but I'm ignoring your well-funded lobbyist-hiring asses. You are a joke. An expensive, and not terribly funny, joke.
I have looked at the Second Amendment carefully and there are some things that are conspicuously absent from it.
For example, there is no protection of a right to sell arms for a profit in the Second Amendment. It doesn't say boo about your Constitutional right to sell guns to people you don't goddamn know.
Nor is there any constitutional protection of a right to manufacture arms. Nothing about making or building firearms.
You have a right to own a firearm under the Second Amendment. You don't have the right to make a profit selling one to a stranger, and you don't have the right to mass produce guns. You just don't.
The government can strictly regulate who sells guns and who mass produces guns in this country, and such strict regulation does not come into conflict with the Constitution... because the Constitition is silent on the matter of gun trafficking and gun production.
Here are a few suggestions.
No more selling guns at gun shows.
Jesus Tap-DANCING Christ.The flea market economic model is about as appropriate for guns as it for drugs.
If you rely on gun shows to earn a living... find another way to earn a living.
If you sell guns out of the back of your car, you are part of the problem. Time for you to find other marketable skills. Start a meth lab, it will pretty much be a lateral move for you.
Gun sellers... prepare... we are about to regulate the bejeezus out of you.
Time for your lobbyists and attorneys to earn their pay.
Gun manufacturers should be held legally (civilly) accountable when their products are used in wrongful deaths.
Tort reform caps on lawsuits must not apply to gun manufacturers at all.I recommend that the civil penalties to a gun manufacturer start at about... $100 million per dead person, minus one million dollars per year of the age of the dead person. And the original draft of this post started at one billion dollars minus $100 million per year of the age of the dead person, so I'm already meeting you gun makers in the middle, see?
Right now, the liability for gun manufacturers for wrongful deaths hovers around... ZERO dollars. Let's fix that.
Once it is in the economic interest of gun manufacturers to keep their products out of irresponsible hands, you will see a marked improvement in gun safety in this great land of ours. Market forces are pretty impressive motivators.
Gun owners must be legally (criminally) responsible when their property is used in wrongful deaths.
If your gun is used in a wrongful death, you go to prison no matter who actually used the gun.The Second Amendment does not protect your right to let your goddamn gun slip through your buttery fingers and fall into the hands of some crazy under-medicated idiot.
One conspicuous component of this problem seems to be based on gun owners not keeping tabs on their property. People seem to keep better track of their car keys than their firearms in this country. Well, if you knew that you might go to prison if you lost your car keys, I'll bet you would make a priority out of knowing where the hell they were at all times.
There is a self-satisfied bumper-sticker from gun advocates that claims "Gun Control is hitting what you aim at."
Well, I say that gun control is knowing where the hell your guns are at all times. Put THAT on your goddamn bumper.
When I was in Basic Training, we had it literally beaten into our heads that you always... ALWAYS... had control over your weapon. Woe unto the sad soldier who let his rifle unattended for even the blink of an eye. Our drill sergeants were not playing around and were not interested in our Second Amendment rights. They were more worried about our safety and the safety of our buddies and the dreadful responsibilities that attach to gun possession. They were very patient when teaching us marksmanship, because you can always improve that. But gun safety was vigorously, and harshly, enforced without even a glimpse of patience. And rightly so.
My Dad is a strong advocate for Second Amendment rights. Very serious about gun ownership. He has guns in his house. For a long time he also had kids in his house. So, his guns had trigger safes on them. So, even if one of his unattended guns got into the wrong hands (in a house literally bursting at the seams with wrong hands) gun safety was strictly enforced.
My Dad is my model for what a gun owner who is serious about gun safety should be. And if every gun owner took the simple, affordable and EXISTING precautions that I witnessed him take, the number of wrongful handgun deaths in this country would plummet overnight.
This problem seems to have a mental health component attached to it.
We have a lot of free range crazy roaming our great land. We might want to do something meaningful about that, too. Guns and Prozac alone don't appear to be enough, by themselves.Finally, We are NOT doing nothing.
Doing nothing about this situation is not the same as doing no harm.The actions we, as a country, take might not be perfect and might not solve the problem overnight... but we are going to take action to address this crap because... enough already.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, and perfectionists are cordially invited to sit this one out.
I don't know how much worse this problem has to get before you are willing to do something about this, but I've reached the limits of my patience.
You say something now.
I share your concern for the safety and welfare of our children and the general public at large. But this issue runs much deeper than the discussion of legal ownership of weapons, or, even punishing gun manufacturers. Which, has been attempted in the past. Even weapons we all agree do not belong on our streets. Never mind that our own government, through programs like Fast and Furious, have put those same weapons in the hands of criminals. We (meaning Americans) have done a horrible job providing health insurance for individuals who are suffering from mental illness. I've spent some time working with clients -- clients who have serious mental illness. The majority of those clients are not violent. Others are. Regardless, they still require medical treatment and medication for their medical conditions. Otherwise, they can not contribute -- all that they could contribute to the well being of our nation. Nor, can we identify or intervene when an individual is on the verge of committing another unthinkable crime. a My heart goes out to the citizens and the families of the children and staff who were killed or injured in Newtown. The crime was horrific. But it is a mistake to try to narrow this argument down to those who support gun ownership v. those who are opposed to gun ownership. The shooter in this crime is dead. A suicide. His, mother, the legal owner of the weapons used to commit the crime was murdered in her sleep. What that tells me is the shooter's mother would probably not have allowed her son to take the weapons out of the house, without her supervision. Naturally, you are free to disagree with me. But, you can't prosecute mom. Mom was also a victim.
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ReplyDeleteYes, I understand the anger our community and communities across the entire nation are feeling. Of course I understand. I raised a family. And I am just as horrified as the parents of a newborn, a two year old, a six year old, or even a child that has recently attained young adulthood. But publicly attacking law-abiding citizens for the senseless and horrific actions of a violent perpetrator, who for all purposes, appears to have been mentally unstable, will not get us one inch closer to addressing the real problem before us. Which is, determining the pathological causes of the senseless violence that we are experiencing in this nation, as well in Canada, the United Kingdom and other nations. There is no "one size fits all" Band-aid or fix all. Do I have suggestions I would like local, state and federal government to consider? Naturally. But, once again, it appears that the fight will center around the issue of gun control. I also come from a military family. Where gun safety, and a profound respect of life was taught. But I have friends, as you do, who are so angry, that they are willing to focus that anger, not just against the perpetrator of the crime at hand, which is very understandable. But they are also targeting their friends, their neighbors and other community members who have never committed a crime, with a legally owned weapon, or otherwise. Witch hunts like this will not discourage future mass murders. They will only serve as the catalyst for even deeper polarization. I would like to urge you, and my friends at the other end of the spectrum, who have taken up the gauntlet to abolish private ownership of all weapons, to take a deep breath, and a few steps back from this issue, until they have had the time they need to think calmly and rationally about the causes of these horrible crimes. Until that time, let's try to pull together and treat one another with respect and compassion. Just as the citizens of Newtown are doing for each other. We have a lot of work to do. Just this once, let's try to do it together, without the bitterness, finger pointing and anger, that I see spewed on Newspaper comment pages and social media sites, like Facebook. President Obama is right. More laws will not prevent these senseless crimes. We need to get to the heart of the problem. And not be afraid to commit the resources required to prevent these horrible crimes in the future.
I understand that there are specific elements of the Newtown story that don't lend themselves to an all encompassing solution.
ReplyDeleteI realize that the Mom was murdered by her son, so prosecution is not going to resolve this matter.
But, I will assert that if she had safely secured her firearms, and had used trigger locks, she would still be alive today, as would about twenty children.
This is supposed to be about reducing the alarming rate of gun violence in this country in general. Not about avoiding this specific incident in isolation.
This is not just about Newtown, Connecticut. It is also about the shooting in Oregon. And the shooting of Gabby Gifford in Arizona. And the slaying of Treyvon Martin in Florida. And the thousands of firearm related wrongful deaths that happen every year in this country.
If we don't start emphasizing the importance of the responsibility that attaches to exercising 2nd Amendment rights, and remembering that we can more strictly regulate who sells and manufactures firearms in this country, then it is unlikely that we will make a dent in the thousands of gun related deaths in this country.
Look what it took to get people to the point where they were actually willing to have a serious conversation about this matter.
The gun lobby and the NRA, by their conduct, have made it clear that they are not going to allow a serious attempt to pull together to happen on their watch. The attempts to demonize the President, because he is "coming for our guns" is already a well developed toxic cloud poisoning the political atmosphere. By design.
This is going to have to be done in spite of the prevailing political divide. We are unlikely to be able to wait until a more calm political tide to take action.
The first step to getting out of a hole is not to stop digging. The first step is to realize that you are in a hole in the first place.
The gun lobby and the NRA aren't even ready to admit that we might actually be in a hole. And they are sure as hell are not ready to stop digging.
The gun control advocates aren't willing to admit that their "make guns illegal" approach is just going to cause the gun lobby to have the political support it needs to prevent meaningful action from being taken at all.
Each of these polar opposites are so busy believing that they are right, that they don't see anything else.
This country has been deadlocked on gun safety for decades, and it is time to break that deadlock.
Not sure I understand why you think that I am not talking about the senseless crimes in Aurora, or, Oregon, or Arizona. None of these crimes make sense. Trigger locks have keys. Keys are typically hidden in drawers or on key rings. Safes have combinations. Or, some safes can be opened without combinations. I wholeheartedly agree that gun safety is a critical component of preventing guns from falling into the wrong hands. And, I agree that the "politically polarized" are so focused on beating each other up, or beating up the victim's dead mother, that they are not ever going to be part of the rational discussion -- that I hope and pray will lead to real change in this nation. But first, we have some major hurdles to overcome. For instance, how do you take guns that rational people agree shouldn't be in the hands of the general public out of circulation? do you go house to house with search warrants and confiscate weapons? How do confiscate guns from the criminal element that exists in this nation and south of the border? How do we prevent our government from selling weapons out of gun stores, that they intend to place in the hands of criminals? We are a nation that glorifies violence. Elected leaders are willing to cut social programs like Medicaid and Social Security -- programs that assist parents with raising children with mental or physical disabilities -- in order to continue to spend trillions of dollars on wars. America's ego is so firmly wrapped up in it's own self-importance, that it is willing to allow it's own citizens to go without food, social security and critical medical care. Medical care that could, in some cases, prevent other horrible crimes from taking place. I am equally horrified by the senseless violence. But cutting essential social programs will increase crime, not stop it. Hungry people break in to other people's homes to steal food, blankets, and other essential supplies. Yes, this issue is much larger than "whether or not we should or shouldn't own guns."
ReplyDeleteIn Europe, where they have stricter gun control laws, they have had similar mass murders. Europeans often ask Americans, "why don't you put your government to work for you?" I find that to be an incredibly relevant question at this time. And, I'm certainly aware that many of the people I know and have known for years, are so angry about this crime, that they are incapable of discussing the issue rationally. I'm not the enemy, Shane.
I concur.
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