Guns, Guns, and More Guns

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  This exchange was posted today by two Facebook friends. To me, it's part of the dialog that needs to happen as we consider what, if anything, we can do to reduce the terrible carnage that guns wreak in our country.

  
  

  Keith Luc Oster

  I had a thought while I was walking the dog: Why do I get my name and address recorded and sign my life away to purchase my regulated amount of Decongestant? But I can, in the very same day, buy an entire shelf-full of ammunition and not be asked a single question? Odd? Good? Bad? Over-regulation? Under-regulation? Dunno. Personally, in a Post-"it-is-normal-for-the-government-to-overstep-its-bounds" World, it would seem not entirely unacceptable to document bullet purchases not unlike Pseudoephedrine and set some reasonable volume a normal human can purchase in a month. Or a week. Or something.

  Like · · 3 hours ago near Fredericksburg, VA ·
  

  • Jennifer Baril Kenney likes this.
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    Jennifer Baril Kenney it wouldn't seem unacceptable, but serious shooters load their own, there's plenty of reloader presses available, it's such a simple device that it's virtually impossible to regulate, and if you restrict commercial bullet loads, homemade ones will only get more prevalent.

    about an hour ago · Like
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    Keith Luc Oster My next door neighbor is a huge reloader. Not as a matter of conspiracy theories...a simple matter of economics. He goes to the range a few times a week as a hobby and if he didn't reload, his ammunition bill would approach his home mortgage! Awesome life skill. I'll take a stab in the dark that the purveyors of terror in Columbine, Sandy Hook, Colorado, and others weren't reloaders, though...

    about an hour ago · Like
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    Jennifer Baril Kenney As you said, simple matter of economics. If you move the price of ready-made ammo high enough, the next Columbine, Sandy Hook, Colorado, etc, will reload.

    about an hour ago · Like

    
    

    Two people making a very reasonable point about gun control. Here are a couple more.

    
    

    Guns are durable things. A hundred year old gun can still  be fired as if it was new. 

    
    

    There are an enormous number of guns in private ownership already. A ban on new sales of some guns, for example assault rifles, would do nothing to eliminate the large number of guns already among the populace. Also, semi-automatic guns can be converted to fully automatic rather easily.

    
    

    Many people do enjoy target shooting. I find it boring myself, and haven't been on a range since I stopped being a law enforcement officer, but to each his or her own. In addition, many people hunt - again, not me -  and I have no problem with hunting, where and when it's legal and within established game limits. Finally, many people think a gun will protect them in their homes, or when they're in public. Statistically, this is foolish. The gun owner is in greater danger for possessing the weapon than would be the case if there was no gun. More on that in a minute. But there are legitimate reasons why a person might want to have a firearm. 

    
    

    The Supreme Court has ruled pretty definitively that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not one restricted to armories and the militia. But does this mean any American can possess any weapon at all? We strictly regulate possession of explosives and bombs, and certain knives are prohibited by law. Some places are closed to what is called "open carry" here in Colorado - schools, airports, libraries, courts. (It's kind of ironic that we'd be arrested if we tried to bring a gun into the Supreme Court building where the individual right decision was made.)

    
    

    Now, on to practical considerations. Personally, I haven't seen the monthly magazine of the National Rifle Association for many years, but I remember there was always a column there about people who used guns to prevent crime. Stories such as, "A grandmother in (name of town) was accosted in a parking lot by three punks, drew her gun and frightened them away," or "A convenience store clerk drew his gun on an armed robber and wounded the man before he fled."

    
    

    I'm sure their stories are true, but for every life protected by a gun, I'll bet there's more than one like, "A man returned home from work early and found his wife with another guy. He shot them both and then committed suicide," or "Losing a bar fight, a man drew his gun and killed his adversary," or "A five-year-old found her father's gun in a dresser drawer and was playing with it when he found her and took it away from her." (This actually happened to my grandmother.)

    
    

    So, guns don't save lives in the aggregate. Gun rights advocates cite the New Life Church here in Colorado Springs as an occasion in which an armed security monitor shot and disabled a mass murderer, and they're right, but we pay a very heavy price in other murders, suicides, and accidental shootings for that benefit. The argument that, "The way to confront a bad guy with a gun is to be sure there are good guys with guns," strikes me as preposterous. How are we to identify the good guys? Do they all wear nametags? Also, the argument that video games, violence on television and at the movies is somehow responsible for the tragedies we have witnessed is just silly. Heck, as a child I saw enormous numbers of shootouts on television. "Gunsmoke" started every week with Marshall Dillon shooting someone.
    
    There will continue to be guns in America for as long as any of us is living. As regrettable as it is to say, law enforcement can only be reactive to gun violence when so many guns are already in anonymous hands and a significant part of the population is determined to resist any law that would restrict gun ownership.
    
    What could help, and what must be done, is a persistent public education effort to persuade people that a gun is not the solution to anyone's personal problems. That's s challenge the National Rifle Association and all other gun rights advocates bear a special responsibility to meet. But it doesn't excuse the rest of us from our moral commandment to make certain that human life is sacred and everyone knows it.