Posted on 09/28/2003 9:47:53 AM PDT by Ed Straker
Should there be stricter gun control?
Diane Glass, a left-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, responds.
DIANE GLASS
AJC columnist
On Sundays in Georgia, you can't buy a bottle of wine, but you can buy a gun at Wal-Mart. Just pass the background check and you're ready to lock and load. But don't be too quick to shoot the liberal; at least, not this one. Your head may need some work, but I have no desire to control your arms.
Stricter gun control is like Nancy Reagan's "just say no" campaign. Those who were never inclined to indulge are validated, those who already abuse continue to abuse. Do you really think stricter gun control is going to decrease homicides? The only people who won't be able to get guns will be law-abiding citizens who have no knowledge of underground networks. Those aren't the people committing crimes.
Rosie O'Donnell and a host of other vocal liberals fight for stricter gun control. I know you've heard this a time or two, but people kill people. Guns are inanimate objects. For anyone who watched "Bowling for Columbine," the award winning documentary by the uber-liberal Michael Moore, in between the chuckles, one message stood out loud and clear: gun homicides in the U.S. aren't a gun control problem; they're a citizen problem. Plenty of Canadians own guns, yet their homicide rate is significantly lower. Further proof is in the crime rate. It's going down, not up. So I ask -- where's the correlation of crime and gun ownership? Gun ownership continues to increase.
Gun control advocates must live in a city condo. Or, maybe they live in the suburban dream where gated communities and postage stamp lawns cloister them from the rest of civilization. Because they're forgetting about the rest of us who live in more rural, less restricted and secure communities where a guard isn't there as a watchful eye, where there is no neighborhood crime watch, where Bob and Jane aren't just down the street. For the rest of us, a gun is not a right, it's a necessity. It's true that a weapon can be used against you. So here's some good advice: if you're not willing to use it in self-defense, don't buy one!
There are far more automobile fatalities in the U.S. but we don't stop driving cars. Some drivers drink and drive, but we don't punish them by restricting the driving privileges of everyone else. We simply punish the violators. When we hear tragic stories about children getting hold of handguns, I understand the impulse to ban guns. But don't we also hear about children falling out of windows, out of cars, being beaten to death? That doesn't mean the problem is guns. The problem is us.
Don't kill the messenger.
Related:
http://www.wagc.com/index.html
SHAUNTI FELDHAHN
for ajc.com
Don't look now, Toto, but we're not in Kansas anymore. A liberal just made a conservative argument on gun control.
And now a conservative is about to make an argument that - ahem - may not quite sound like the NRA.
I agree that the problem is us. (Diane, you've got conservative potential yet!) But that does not excuse 'us' from doing something about that problem. In fact, the very knowledge of the dark side of human nature should make us watchful, careful and willing to both enact and enforce reasonable controls on deadly weapons -- although always with a careful eye to the Second Amendment.
I personally think that the drinking and driving analogy is a good one -- we punish the violators, not the good drivers. But we do place reasonable restrictions on the good drivers, out of caution. We institute an entire system to not only catch violators, but to prevent incidents. We insist that bars restrict alcohol service to drunk people at closing time. We institute roadblocks and mandatory license checks on notorious roadways on party-hearty Saturday nights. And, of course, we punish the violators. And even with all these precautions, too many people still die under the wheels of drunk drivers -- so it is clear that we need to do more.
Just as I believe those results have demonstrated the need for stricter measures to prevent drunk-driving incidents, I also believe we have seen the need for stricter measures to prevent gun violence. Not all states exercise the gun-control precautions that Georgia does.
We should never prohibit the right to bear arms, but it is a reasonable tradeoff to ask everyone to wait a few days and go through a criminal background check before exercising that right. It is a reasonable tradeoff to ask anyone who wants to bear AK-47 or Uzi sub-machine guns to go through a much more stringent system. It is not only reasonable but essential that we do a better job of policing the areas that criminals now slip through the cracks -- gun shows being a notorious example. And, of course, as the uber-conservatives say, we also have to do a better job of enforcing the laws we have.
Liberals (other than Diane) may wish the right to bear arms wasn't in the Bill of Rights, but it is -- right up there with freedom of speech and all those other rights that the liberal set vociferously defends. Our Founding Fathers knew that the problem is indeed us. There is a dark side to the hearts of men, and banning gun ownership will not solve that. As a gun-owner friend of mine says, "even if we took all the guns away, men would still find a way to form gangs and kill each other with sticks." The only true answer is to change the hearts of men. And no law, regulation or enforcement action is able to do that.
GUN CONTROL
Do you favor stricter gun control laws?
Yes.2%41
No. 98%2215
Undecided0%0
Total Votes 2256
"More" gun control means using both hands and a bench rest when you are shooting.
"'I'm for gun control. I'm a peace-loving guy.' - Time magazine cover story Aug 18, 2003. When interviewed on the issues by Sean Hannity on August 27th, Schwarzenegger admitted that he is for gun control. He said he supported both the Brady Bill and the ban on so-called 'assault weapons.' He said 'also I would like to close the loophole of the gun shows.' When asked by the Sacramento Bee to detail his positions on gun issues (scroll down), Arnold stated that he supports legislation to ban .50-caliber rifles, force gun buyers to pass a state-defined test in order to purchase a handgun, and require load indicators or magazine safety disconnects on new semiauto handguns.
Ignorance....
Ever hear of a Class III????
Extreme Cluelessness Alert. California doesn't have a so-called gun-show-loophole. All sales must go through a licensed dealer and have had to for two to three years. (Sorry, I don't remember exactly what year it was passed.)
That kind of thing can happen when you don't check to be sure that HCI's talking points really do apply to the particular state you're talking about. Sarah should have crossed that one off when she sent Arnold his "reasonable" gun control positions list.
Oh really. I think your example is out of context with the US culture and shows some ignorance about the concept of the "Citizen Soldier", both in and out of uniform and in and out of active duty. I've been all three and I was an officer around the type of weapon you are; " sorta glad that wackos have trouble laying hands to a nuke,". I can tell you for a fact, that the worst enemy the United States Army fears the most, is the armed US citizenry that becomes organized. You can't "nuke" your homeland, so WMD's become useless for domestic purposes. Soldiers of past conflicts, distant and recent, are always among the civil population ready to train the recruits of a homeland guerrilla army, if need be. All pilots of military aircraft, fast and small, big and slow, fear small arms fire and rightly so..
BTW, When I went into the Army, I swore to protect the Constitution. When I received my bars, I swore, again, to protect the Constitution. I don't remember ever having recanted that pledge. There are hundreds of thousands of us.
As for the argument between the issue of small arms and artillery, aircraft and nuclear weapons in the sense of a domestic struggle, I find the formers inclusion into discussions of the 2nd. Amendment ludicrous, and the laters, a point so moot that it's not worth an intelligent discussion.
70 million gun owners against a military of less than a million ..... they'd never stand a chance if the government pushed it to that.
Which are most likely violation of the 4th amendment. But nobody pays much attention to that part of the old rag than they do the second amendment.
Seriously the only "gun control" we need is:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
If strictly enforced, that should keep most of the really bad guns, those in the hands of jack booted thugs feeding at the tax trough, in line. Just as the Founders intended that they be.
Millions, mi hermano en armas, not mere hundreds of thousands. I swore that oath when I went into ROTC, again when I got my bars, again when I transferred from the Reserve to the Guard. I may have done it a couple more times in writing, but I don't recall for sure. None of those times came with an expiration date. Even my retirement certificute says nothing about a release from the duty to "support and defend... against all enemies, foreign and domestic".
I'm sure the British thought much the same in the late 18th century. You just go right on thinking that and everything will be just fine... NOT!
Here's a liberal's liberal (well an old style one anyway) who disagrees with you.
Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. ... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be possible. -- Hubert H Humprey, United States Senator (D-Minnesota) 1960
If the balloo n should ever go up in a domestic armed struggle, it won't be armed solidiers who will be the target of an aroused populace, it will be the politicians and the bureaucrats, and they are neither well armed nor large in numbers.
She's got a point; that's why I only go to bars in the morning.
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