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| 010302 </MCC PUBDATE> opEd</MCC SECTION> 1</MCC PRIORITY> </MCC SUBPRIORITY> Oak Ridger Online</MCC PUBNAME> --> Story last updated at 12:06 p.m. on Thursday, January 3, 2002 Our View: In search of sensibility on gun laws </MCC HEAD> </MCC BYLINE1> It is hard to imagine parties more apart than on the issue of gun control and gun ownership. Clearly there must be middle ground wide enough to drive a tractor-trailer through, a gap separating law-abiding gun owners from those who would deny them their basic constitutional right of gun ownership. Or separating your basic law-abiding gun owner from those who believe they hold an unfettered right to brandish about any kind of weapon anywhere they might please.[My emphasis] Add to this latter group, apparently, the Tennessee Firearms Association, and specifically its call to permit the swelling number of Tennesseans holding gun permits to walk into restaurants where alcohol is served toting a concealed weapon, or to bring guns onto school property so long as they are locked in a vehicle and held for a "legitimate purpose." John Harris of the state Firearms Association believes that restrictions should be relaxed because gun-permit holders have shown they are responsible. Some things simply do not mix. Alcohol and driving is one. Alcohol and carrying concealed weapons into establishments where alcohol is served is another. There is, in both cases, a presumption of risk. If legislators cannot anticipate those risks and act accordingly to make it more difficult for people to kill or injure themselves and others, then what is the purpose of legislators and of laws? And what imaginable "legitimate purpose" can be served by bringing firearms onto school property, even where locked inside a vehicle? How soon do some forget the senseless carnage on school grounds across the country? But the best question yet: How many of those nearly 100,000 Tennesseans obtaining concealed-and-carry permits during the last few years have already abandoned most hope that the state can protect them? A chilling prospect; and a invitation to lawlessness that can become self-fulfilling prophecy. </MCC STORY> |
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My response to the editor dmcconn@oakridger.com
I am a law-abiding gun carrier and, quite apart from your inflammatory and hyperbolic language (tsk tsk, editor, to what audience do you write?), I do believe in my right to carry legally where I wish.
What evidence is there that legal gun carriers are a risk to anyone but the Bad Guys? What evidence is there that a legal gun carrier is a risk to her child's school or to his 'waterin' hole?' Outlaws hazard these with or without laws and with or without guns. That's why they're outlaws.
Finally, what of "...shall not be infringed." is unclear? Our Founding Fathers struggled mightily to teach that the job of legislators is not to merely pass laws but to pass wise laws. Apparently for some the struggle was in vain.
I cite evidence that legal and liberal gun carry is beneficial to societal interests. I commend to your attention Dr. John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (U. Chicago, 1998).
The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.