Posted on 12/19/2012 4:23:40 AM PST by Kaslin
PARIS -- Anyone who can't withstand a rational debate on the subject of gun control -- particularly in light of last week's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut -- should be automatically prohibited from ever owning a firearm. In fact, this should be the number-one requirement of gun ownership: Can someone applying for ownership of a deadly weapon withstand an hour-long debate against someone in favor of gun control without resorting to physical or verbal assault?
Is it too much to ask that every person wanting to possess a firearm be subject to a battery of tests -- everything from intelligence and emotional quotient exams to a psychological evaluation and background check? When America's Founding Fathers drew up the Second Amendment, they didn't do so with the mentally stunted, emotionally disturbed and deeply insecure in mind. Back in their time, life was relatively challenging unto itself, and they must have figured that anyone who could survive day-to-day existence could surely handle a firearm if need be.
A question that has repeatedly come up since the Sandy Hook shootings is why America has so much more gun violence than other Western nations. The best explanation is that the Constitution defines and underpins culture. In fact, nearly every element in any Western democracy can be traced back to its constitutional roots.
The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms, but in other countries -- Canada, for example -- the right to own a gun is not a given. The onus is on an individual to prove he's mature, competent and sane enough to own one. As a result, no one in Canada grows up thinking of guns as a natural appendage. Gun ownership is seen as a privilege one must earn. Is there really anything so backward about that? Or is it preferable to arm everyone and pray for the best?
Canadian law requires a license and a safety course in order to own, borrow or store any sort of firearm. Police conduct a criminal background check and a safety screening to ascertain whether an applicant has "threatened or attempted suicide, suffered from or been diagnosed or treated by a medical practitioner for: depression; alcohol, drug or substance abuse; behavioral problems; or emotional problems," or "been reported to the police or social services for violence, threatened or attempted violence, or other conflict in your home or elsewhere," or recently suffered a relationship breakdown, job loss or bankruptcy. If an ex-wife tells the cops that perhaps you are not sane, then too bad for you.
Such a regulatory process also means fewer guns floating around. But what if a criminal did happen to be packing heat? Would you wish that you had a weapon so you could have a movie-style shootout? No, you would swallow your pride and let him take what he wanted, then call the insurance company.
Believe me, I understand the acute frustration one feels when being robbed or otherwise victimized. I was mugged on the subway in Paris last year. We both could have had guns, but thankfully neither of us did in a country with tight gun control. (The perpetrator would have had the advantage of foresight anyway, while I would have fumbled around trying to find mine.)
So how can America go about fixing its gun laws? Well, it's complicated, because all the crazies are mixed in with the sane gun owners. Since there was no sanity litmus test at the outset, how about implementing mandatory license renewal complete with psychological evaluations and background checks? Anyone failing to comply with a basic psychological competency test should have his weapons revoked.
It would likely take at least a generation to better balance individual gun rights with everyone else's right to their own day-to-day freedom and safety, but the shift in cultural mind-set needs to start somewhere
And what if the criminal wanted you? Just suck it up, I guess and if the criminal intended to kill you, just take one for the collective. Your fellow drones will be appreciative.
Furthermore, people should be able to debate why it is they should have freedom of speech, or free exercise of religion, the right to petition the government for grievances or a jury trial, or to receive just compensation for property taken for public use, for an hour without getting heated, before they will be granted those rights either. Plus the IQ and EQ tests. We can’t have just anyone exercising those rights. Ideas kill.
And what if the criminal pointing a gun at you decides to leave no witness? I suppose then that you won’t be filing a claim with your insurance, now will you?
The illogical fallacies throughout this “column” defy understanding.
Wow! Townhall has a 30 IQ ape on its staff.
Good idea. Let them and their security turn their guns in first.
People should have to prove they are not idiots before they are granted the right to vote.
How about this?
We put prospective presidential candidates Under The Microscope?
Make sure they don’t have nefarious backgrounds, abandonment issues, past drug use, can prove they are who they say they are, etc.
Oh no, that would be racist I guess.....
Or write columns suggesting changes to public policy.
As if a law-breaker gives 2 $hits about following a process.
Hard to call the insurance company if the crook takes your life.
How about applying the same criteria to those wanting an abortion. Life and death matter also.
Can someone applying for ownership of a deadly weapon withstand an hour-long debate against someone in favor of gun control without resorting to physical or verbal assault?
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Under this rule I would never own a weapon.
If I had to argue gun control with Chris Mathews, Rachel Maddow, or Bob Beckel,for an hour, I wouldn’t pass muster.I would probably come out a raving lunatic. Like them, only on the other side of the argument.
This list of human failings would disqualify 99% of all people. A "relationship breakdown" ??? an ex-wife says you are crazy??? violence, threatened or attempted??? alcohol abuse, ever been drunk???
I'm glad that is Canada and this is the USA {at least for the present}.
Has everybody lost their mind? This rush to demonize and criminalize a significant segment of the population can lead to no good. If draconian legislation is passed and surely upheld by the SCROTUM (aka SCOTUS), our country will deserve the totalitarian government that follows.
“Our Country won’t go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won’t be any AMERICA because some foreign soldier will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race!” Chesty Puller
Equally ignant is her belief that we have some sort of uniform 'culture' ~ so we can compare Europe, in general, to America, in general, but not all of Europe ~ just certain select countries ~ certainly no one from rural Russia or Siberia ~ why it's not even Europe even though a lot of those people out there running around in the wild do, definitely, look to be European.
I think the way to deal with Rachel and her crowd is simple ~ first, deny that culture has anything at all to do with gun use. Simply point out that white Americans have a lower murder rate than white Europeans, and black Americans have a lower murder rate than black Africans! And isn't that wonderful as well as remarable.
Can she, in fact, say that white Canadians have as low a murder rate as white Americans?
BTW, she's the one who named Canada as a place that differs from America when it comes to gun rights, but this is the chance to shift it to murder rates as the basis for any further discussion about guns ~ they have TWO white subgroups there ~ the French and the Others. The French Canadian murder rate is supposedly higher than the Other Canadian murder rate ~ at least popular belief is the Frenchies are violent to a degree you don't find among the Scots, English, Welsh, Ukrainians, etc.
It's possible that non-francophone white Canadians are as nonviolent as white Americans, but will somebody prove that before asserting it as a fact?
There are perfectly good analyses that show that violence, murder, and gun misuse in the United States tend to follow lines of ethnicity, not culture, and that in every critical case Americans of whatever ethnicity are less violent, murder at a lower rate, and misuse guns less often than their foreign counterparts!
So, all those other guys got a gun problem ~ not us.
I have a better idea. . .let’s make the criminals debate for an hour before they can kill anybody. The issue, my friend, is whether or not our rights our endowed to us by God OR by the state.
Another TownHall writer has outed themself, like Deb Saunders yesterday, so TH ought to make more web space available for others that understand freedom.
How about this....gun ownership is a RIGHT under the constitution. Voting is not a constitutional right. Yet we want to apply standards to secure what is rightful under the constitution while we cannot apply standards for voting which is not.
I think one should have to pass a basic civics, economic and literacy test before voting. Of course that has been outlawed. I don’t believe one should have to pass any “test” besides not being a felon, to have a firearm. Apparently that will become the norm now.
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