So today, I'm going to get into THE topic of the last several weeks:
GUN CONTROL.
1) Proper gun control = using two hands.
And that is that.
2) I can see both sides of this issue. I can easily take up the flag and argue- very convincingly- that firearms should be *heavily* controlled, if allowed at all. I can look into things like school shootings and say, "See? This will make everyone sager!"
OR, I could come down on the side I really *want* to win: Gun owners. I enjoy using firearms, and I think that they are a powerful, effective self-defense tool.
I also know, for a *fact*, that they are a very powerful offensive weapon, as well.
However, the big issue seems to be that gun control advocates speak as though they want to ban ALL semi-automatic weapons; anything with a magazine; anything which they do not see as utilitarian. Hell, they'd probably *love* to ban all firearms, period. And all gun ownership supporters seem to want an open season on gun ownership; .50-caliber armor-piercing rounds in a rifle which could blow your body in half at full mile? Of course!
Me, I think that there is, in fact, a middle ground to be found. But people don't seem to *want* to find it.
Gun advocates always say that "if you outlaw firearms, only outlaws will have firearms!" Well, let's look at a nation where guns are, and have been for some time, totally illegal: Japan.
In 2008, the United States had 9,484 gun deaths; Japan had 11.
In 2007, the numbers were 10,086:22, respectively.
[Source: The Atlantic]
It seems like I'm making a pretty compelling for banning all gun ownership in the United States, yes?
No, I'm not.
Japanese culture is radically different from that in the United States of America. Citizens of Japan are not, and have never been, guaranteed the rights American citizens are. American citizens are granted, are guaranteed, the right to own and bear arms, and they are charged with the duty to stand up and remove any power which tries to overstep its boundaries to control their private lives. The Japanese are not, and never have been.
I understand that there are people who should not be allowed to get their hands on firearms. I understand that so long as such weapons are available that someone will be hurt and/or killed by them. I know that if law-abiding citizens are given the privilege of purchasing firearms, there will be some loophole, some way for criminals and mentally unsound persons to obtain weapons and use them for havoc, massacre, and death.
However, it is not our government's job to eliminate all danger in our lives.
I like driving my car at high speed. However, 85mph is the fastest you are allowed to drive anywhere in the United States. Most of the roads I drive on have limits of 55mph; on larger highways, I see 65mph. If the fastest you are ever going to be required to drive your car is 85mph, why doesn't the Federal government limit all road cars to, say, 90mph?
In 2011, 32,310 people were killed in traffic accidents in the United States; there were 32,885 traffic fatalities in 2010. [http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2012/05/2011-may-have-had-fewest-traffic-fatalities-ever/1#.UPsX-GdxlRw]
How many of them were caused by, or at least turned from a ‘severe accident’ to ‘traffic fatalities’ due to, excessive speed?
How many stories have you heard which end in a drunk driver doing 105mph straight into the side of a family’s minivan?
No, it won’t remove all traffic fatalities; taking away alcohol will prevent an awful lot of those deaths, yes? 31% of the fatalities in 2010- that’s 10,228 men, women, and children, dead- were due to drunk driving crashes. More than three people were killed in drunk driving fatalities for every 100,000 Americans. [http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics]
I don’t hear anyone calling for a second Prohibition. I don’t hear any demand for the government to stop all these manic people who get wasted and then terrorize our children on the roads! Our children are on the street in school buses; they’re playing in the yard; they’re helping old ladies cross the street; I could guarantee you that there are more people in’on’near the streets than are in school! So WHY aren’t we hearing the President of the United States railing against drunk drivers? Why don’t we hear an outcry for this madness, this murder, to be stopped?! Men and women with no driving training beyond Driver’s Ed are getting into high-speed, multi-ton vehicles which are capable of driving through ditches, over low walls, and even straight into your living room, and careening at speed through your neighborhood!
We accept traffic fatalities because we like our cars. Cars aren’t black and scary and evil-looking. Anti-gun activists often don’t understand the weapons they’re afraid of; for instance, while semi-automatic handguns are scary and dangerous because it just takes a trigger squeeze to fire, pistols are generally regarded as less sinister. In fact, most pistols are capable of firing in single-action mode as well. No, they don’t have a magazine, but they have a revolving chamber holding multiple rounds; most commonly six, but there are examples of eight-, nine=, or ten-round revolvers. If you have a so-called “moon clip”, it’s much like having multiple magazines; when you have fired all of the rounds your weapon holds, you simply pop open the chamber, let the empty brass fall, and pop a new, fully-loaded moon clip into position to reload. An experienced shooter using such a clip can reload in the time it would take most people to eject an empty box magazine, slap a new magazine into the breach, and rack the slide to lock a new round into the chamber.
Numerous pictures have begun to circulate the web: pictures of anti-gun politicians- including the President of the United States- surrounded by their standard security: fully-armored Police, Secret Service, men bearing assault weapons, pistols, etc. The pictures are usually captioned with something along the lines of, “If it’s good enough for POTUS, it’s good enough for my family!”
Lawmakers fear guns. They are afraid of the “Black Rifle”; it’s associated with the military; with death; with chaos and carnage. Lawmakers read “gun owner” and hear “homicidal maniac”; they see “semi-automatic rifle” and read it as, “BAR with baby-killing bullets.”
OK, that’s a little extreme. But I’m pissed.
Honestly- here are the two things to which I boil down my arguments:
1) Lawmakers and politicians approach no other subject like they do gun control. Vehicles and alcohol cause about the same number of fatalities annually in the United States, but I have yet to hear a news anchor calling for a sweeping reform of automotive laws and regulations. Newspapers aren’t printing the names and addresses of everyone who’s bought a bottle of alcohol in the last year. [http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/index.html] People are going out to bars and drowning their memories; college parties are still going strong; clubs are still packing their dance floors with the tipsy, the woozy, and the straight-up drunk. No one is so much as questioning their right to enjoy themselves.
2) THIS IS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This nation was founded to provide individuals with the freedoms which we now consider to be a natural right; freedoms which we Americans believe to be inherent to life. I disagree with many of the trends in the modern United States of America, but I do believe that its purpose in this world is true and it is necessary. And I do believe that we must, no matter the cost, hold true to the core principle of our foundation: individual freedom, rights, and responsibility.
Yes, this leads to deaths; but it is why we exist as a country. If you don’t agree with the tenets that this country stands for, the freedoms which we exist as a nation to provide, then leave. Find a country where guns aren’t allowed. Sure, you won’t be allowed to do a lot of other things, but that’s the price you pay. You can’t stand for freedom for some things, and not for others. You either believe in personal freedom, and you believe in the in the idea that our Government exists to protect us from the world, not from ourselves, or you don’t. You either believe in ALL freedoms that this country provides, or you don’t. If not, then find another country; found your own Nation. But this Nation exists, has existed for all its history, to provide its citizens with ALL of the freedoms which its Constitution guarantees them.
I got a little bit mixed up, but I’m pissed..... It seems like no one is saying this, so I’m trying to.
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