Usually I’m content to simply leave a short comment on each of Meghann McCain’s articles posted on The Daily Beast, but today I thought I’d write a dissenting opinion on my own blog concerning something that is very controversial around my area of the country, and that is gun control. Meghann’s posting yesterday, “Why I Love Guns”, not only missed the mark in the argument about gun control but simply re-stated that which the Republicans and the NRA have been chanting for years. It is one of the first time she has said something I disagree with, so I’m going to call her on it as well as find out where my readership sits on this issue.
Your “typical” NRA member seems to tout the gun line as, “I have a RIGHT to have a gun, any gun, anytime, all the time, and you shouldn’t ever stand in the way for me to have one. If I or anyone else uses it irresponsibly, then that’s the breaks. Just because there are crazies with guns doesn’t mean I should have a hard time getting my hands on one. Their view of Democrats is, “You should NEVER have guns! Guns bad!” Liberals extol the number of gun-related deaths and the amounts of rednecks and nutjobs with firepower roaming around the country in Jeeps.
Let’s clear the smoke here, shall we? Honestly — you’re all looking like idiots. You, too, Meghann, and I’ve liked you from the start, but…whew. Swing and a miss, dearie.
First off, the liberals do NOT want to take away guns. Oh, sure, there’s some folks out there that want to eliminate them entirely from everyone, but those folk are about as prominent as the conservatives that think we should hand every kindergartner a Glock upon entering school for their own protection. The vast majority of liberals simply want the following:
- much tighter laws and penalties to control gun sales and acquisition
- much tighter laws and penalties on gun storage, license, and usage
That’s it, really. We don’t think guns, in and of themselves, are evil things, but an awful lot of terrible things have been committed with guns and it behooves us as a society to improve how we view and handle these potentially dangerous items. By doing so, not only can we protect ourselves and others from improper usage, but we preserve the right of people to have and use guns because they won’t be viewed by the extremes as being terrible things.
I believe that anyone of a legal age (18) should be able to procure and operate a firearm. I believe that the higher the firearm you wish to purchase the more checks you will have to go through in order to do so. For a BB gun, you probably don’t need any particular proof. For a shotgun, passing a safety course is requisite. A rifle has a higher requirement, maybe a background check and a waiting time. Handguns are even higher, incorporating the previous plus adding in long wait times, full background checks, and an extended safety course on handgun-specific safety, storage, and usage. Carrying concealed is even higher, probably with poly tests and a psych eval. Assault weapons are simply banned outright as they have no practical use whatsoever.
Does this sound harsh? Perhaps, but we go through a similar scheme when getting a license to drive — learner’s permit, school permit, driver’s license (car/light truck), then you can move up to chauffeurs and eventually CDL and other heavy-truck licenses. We don’t let an uneducated 16-year-old get behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler and neither should we allow a new, unknown gun owner behind the barrel of a .45 pistol without the proper evaluation and training. This isn’t being exclusive, as the NRA would have you believe, but smart and preventative.
Is this so bad? Why does the NRA fight something like this that sounds so…reasonable? Am I missing something?
Have you ever seen those stories in which they talk about how increasing taxes on cigarettes leads directly to a reduction (down the road a piece) in smoking-related illness? Common sense tells us that a reduction in the number of handguns, and guns in general, will lead to a decrease in accidental as well as violent death due to shooting. Can’t we all agree that that reduction is a good thing?
On phone so being very brief.
I think the reason groups such as the NRA or any group trying to preserve a right that other groups are trying to infringe upon is because a lot of times if you give an inch it is like letting the opposition get their foot in the door, making it easier to impose further regulations in the future.
Not sure why this says i’m from Canada, but oh well.
Anoher thing to keep in mind, any regulations or restrictions are for the law abiding citizens who will obey those laws…the bad guys don’t care about new regulations and restrictions and will obtain guns anyway.
As soon as something becomes hard to obtain or illegal it opens a whole new niche in the underground market. And their aren’t many law abiding citizens benefitting from that.
I’m sure tha bad guys would love any restrictions put on guns. The less law abiding citizens there are with guns the easier the bad guys job is.
I’m at a track meet with nothing else to do between races, so I’m back again.
Not sure if it is ok to post links to other articles on here, but doesn’t matter, i can’t figure out how on my phone anyway.
For those that think decreasing the amount of guns in a population decreases the amount of crime with guns and increasing the amount of guns in a population increases the amount of crime, i encourage you to do a little research on Switzerland and their gun control laws and crime rates.
Not saying that if over night everyone in the USA had a gun in their home all would be well, admittingly the opposite would probably be more true. The Swiss have had guns in their lives, homes and culture for as long as there have been guns. The key, i think, is education. I was born with a gun in my hand, as was my son. I’ve got a loaded gun in the house and don’t think anything of him being home alone with it, he knows how to use it and respects it.
Ok, from the paragraph above you learned a little about me, that i own many guns and both I and my son know how to use them. Lets say you are a bad guy and am going to break into one of two houses. One house is mine and the other is next door from me, also occupied by a man in his thirties, but for reasons of his own does not posses any firearms, and you, the bad guy, know this. Ok decision time, which house are you breaking into tonight?
Saying that we should have licenses and pass tests for gun use/ownership is the equivilent of saying that licenses and tests should be required before speaking and voting. We know how tests for voting were used, to disenfranchise a group of people’s political representation because of the color of their skin.
When are you people going to realize that gun ownership, like freedom of speech, religion, press, is a right, not a priveledge? What if you had to submit to a government agency anything you were going to post on this blog for approval, before you could post it?
And dont tell me there is a difference between free speech and gun ownership because no one ever died from words. Go tell that to the 6 million+ who died in the Nazi death camps of Europe or the 5 million who died in Cambodias killing fields, or the 20-30 million who died in China becasue Mao thought there should be a new revolution, and it should begin by killing all the intellectuals and teachers?
And why would SCOTUS put limits on free speech if it were not for hate groups who have used thier speech to enflame violence against those they hate?
You want to limit ammunition? Try this exercise out first: everytime you write something that proposes to restrict the rights of others, restrict yourself to 50 words, 400 characters, or 2 sentences, which ever comes first.
Mark: I think reduction and having some sense of control is exactly the key; I wouldn’t ever “take guns away” from anyone, but putting a finger on it to the point of eliminating haphazard distribution seems sensible.
Ryan: I don’t buy the, “foot in the door” argument, because you can apply that to anything. If we say that we need to put some regulations on some aspect of society to help make it less chaotic, does that naturally mean that it’ll be over-regulated? Not necessarily. Not everything becomes a slippery slope. Most of the time, I’m of the opinion that if you get a “foot in the door” on something and it ends up causing a lot of changes, it was due for those changes anyway, there was just that first hump to get over.
Yes, you can post any links you want, if you can figure out how to on your phone.
I don’t know why it says you’re from Canada, but the system isn’t perfect — it’s based on your IP address, so maybe the server your phone goes through is in Canada, I dunno.
I agree with your point on education insomuch as it makes the idea of having guns in the population better. I do not believe, however, that everyone who owns a gun is properly educated about them and/or respects them properly. If you have no restrictions on gun ownership based on how they are educated about them, how will you enforce that? That’s what I’m advocating — you want to own a handgun? Ok, fine by me, but let’s make sure you get some classes on how to use and store it properly so you don’t hurt yourself or others from misuse and/or stupidity.
I know there are varying studies of how gun ownership in a society affects (or doesn’t affect) crime rates. For instance, violet crime rates in both Australia and New Zealand are far lower than anywhere else in the world — NZers have almost NO guns whatsoever and Australians only really own hunting guns, so….what’s that tell us? In other words, it’s possible to have a system of less guns and less crime, I believe. Less guns does not necessarily have to mean more crime, just as more guns doesn’t always translate into less crime.
While entering YOUR house as a thief may be harmful to my health, I really wonder at how effective that threat really is. I know that if I had a handgun in my bedside drawer, loaded and ready to go, I’d be about 99% more likely to shoot my wife coming back from the bathroom than to actually affect a robbery in progress. I’m barely coherent enough to answer my phone let alone operate a deadly weapon in the middle of the night; I don’t know as though you’d be any better and what if you came home drunk and offed your kid because you couldn’t make heads or tails of who was lurking in the hall? I’d bet the instances for “accidental” violence because of this factor far outweigh the times when having a loaded gun handy enabled the homeowner to defend themselves. I have no stats to back this up, but just knowing human nature, this is what I would guess.
Again, I have no problem with people owning guns, but I think the problem with them is two-fold: A) the education about gun ownership and usage is poor and B) it is far too easy for someone who is unable to properly manage a deadly weapon to obtain them. Making a few laws and regulations to manage those benefits us all.
JohnH: Simply because it is a right does not mean it necessarily has to go unchecked, unregulated, and uncontrolled. Although I have the freedom of speech, that does not give me the right to say anything I want at any time to anybody — there are limits to that right; specifically, when my right to free speech infringes upon another’s right to their own happiness, welfare, and personal freedoms. I cannot use racial slurs on network television without being penalized and I cannot print libel about anyone in a newspaper. This could, in the radical extent, be seen as “limiting” my freedom of speech when, in reality, it is simply regulating it to the health, safety, and well-being of everyone involved. Likewise, I cannot perform human sacrifices even if my religion calls for it, simply because it infringes upon another human being.
If you believe gun ownership is an unfettered right, then would you advocate handing out pistols to each and every citizen? I doubt it, and if you do, I think you’re nuts. That doesn’t make any more sense than saying, “no regulations or limitations!” I know plenty of people who should never come within 10 miles of a firearm let alone have more than one, and I know lots of folks (like Ryan, who I know personally) who I’d trust with almost any firearm at all. Some discretion, I think, is in order.
No person is an island, especially where a firearm is concerned, unless you are out in the woods by yourself, miles from anyone. The fact is, firearms are designed to work on other living things which automatically makes them subject to some regulation — we can’t have people going around firing bullets into the air randomly. For this reason, we have laws like not firing guns in town, specific hunting laws, etc. This is not limiting your freedom to bear arms, but is regulating it to the benefit of all. Unlike some liberal thinkers, I am not advocating the elimination of firearms, but stiffer regulation thereof. There are far too many people these days getting their hands specifically on firearms designed for only one purpose — killing people in violent ways — and I (and others) are not comfortable with that idea. As we saw with the various school shootings, that sort of weapon is easy enough to come by, especially for someone with no record. Seems to me evaluating those folk for psychological problems and so forth ahead of time will ensure that they don’t get their mitts on the guns to start with.
Also, think of it this way — the more positive feelings people have towards gun ownership and safety, the less likely they are to infringe on your personal desire to own guns. If I know that the laws are making ownership safe, that people are educated, that whackos find it hard to get a gun, and if you own a semi-automatic pistol with armor-piercing bullets you have a damned good reason to do so, I’m not going to care as much if you own a gun because I know you’re not going to pull it on me in the middle of a Safeway.
Personally, I don’t hold much water with the, “Well, we need guns in case anarchy breaks out or the government tries to control us!” theory. While I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen again, I like to think we’ve progressed far enough in society to avoid such situations, and I really feel that even if every Jew was armed, they’d still have been in trouble because, what are you going to do? Fight the entire German army? I don’t think so. Besides that, most people in such situations are duped into thinking it’s somehow acceptable or they are confused enough to not know what is going on anyway. You can go ahead and try pulling a gun on the next police officer that tries to give you a ticket that you don’t think you deserve, but I don’t know as though you’ll get very far. I personally believe that our energies are better placed into reforming society and the mindset than to brute-forcing our way around with a S&W.
I agree with tighter control and regulations but how would a gun shop go about getting a psychological evaluation from a buyer?
You can’t just say “Hey, sorry, you appear to have depression and you off-handedly remarked that you hate your co-workers. You can’t own a hand gun”. It would be great to prevent psychos from owning a gun by evaluating them but I think it’s pretty impractical and unfair and probably invades some sort of health privacy/discrimination or something. Also, good luck telling the angry, coked-up black man from D-town (or Waterloo, if you’d rather) that he has to pay to see a doctor before he can buy a gun. 
I can be crazy and still drive a car in to a crowd of people or preferably my next door neighbor, so should I not be able to operate a vehicle or eat with a knife? But besides that I agree that there should be strict required classes and background checks are an EXCELLENT idea, if it doesn’t happen already. It can let a shop owner know if that person has a violent criminal history or is on parole and shouldn’t be owning a gun in the first place. It’s all about compliance and CARING, really, and not about making a buck.
I guess what I was simply trying to say is that the schizo man on medication and the completely normal man with the perfect family and perfect job can both kill someone. Around here if you cut off one of those rich “normal” buttholes in their $38,000 SUV you get your head blown off in a road rage homicide. Not to make a huge debate about mental health and gun safety..but..I don’t think the evaluation would be accurate, nor do I really think it would lower mortality rates. It’s true it could be a deterrent and one more hoop to jump through but that’s the only way I could see it being effective. But that’s just my opinion. I don’t have any facts and figures on the matter.
Nathan,
Apparently you find yourself unable to to limit yourself to 50 words, 400 characters or 2 sentences whichever comes first. Since I stand on the side of absolute rights, I feel free to use as many as I choose, so here goes….
First and most importantly, Why should I, as an honest, upright, jobholding, taxpaying, childrearing and householding citizen be held to any higher standard in the free exercise of my rights than some low life whose only ambition is to take from me what I have worked to prvide for myself and family? Can you offer one reason that is so compelling to the interests of the state that our right to arms should be regulated? Why should it be assumed that a firearm which is being sold, is going to immediately be used in a crime? And what does crime have to do with my rights? Since when do criminals apply for carry permits?
You say that some discretion is in order here, yet the states and cities that have the most discretion over who has a gun also have the highest crime rates. The only collorary that can be drawn between firearms restriction and crime is that in every case that firearms are heavily restricted, crime goes up. Contrary to what you post on Australia, since restricting arms, it has become a hot bed of violent crime as has Britian. Try FactCheck.com
You say that you think that having arms protrects us against tyrrany is red herring of sorts, that we have progressed so far as a society that won’t happen. Please remember that the Hitler and the Nazi party were elected by the populance, and that the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto did fight the whole German army, and that our founders fought the whole British army, and the North Viet Cong fought the whole United States Army as are the insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban in Afganistan. Don’t be so smug in your ideas of how far we’ve progressed, that you forget we are still a bunch of animals.
You say that if I’ve been through all the hoops you’d have me jump through, you’d feel safer if we were in the Safeway together. Personally, I’d feel safer if there were greater restrictions on the use of keyboards and internet blogs, ideas are dangerous things, someone might get the idea that theirs are best for all, and try to enforce it. Politicians use this tactic everyday. How many bad laws do we have because someone thought it would be a good idea?
And yes, I’m all for giving guns to all who want them, from where I stand and what I’ve seen, laws against the criminal and mentally disturbed don’t work. But what they do is keep people like you and me from having a gun to protect ourselves from them. So at the moment you are in the Safeway and some lunatic starts shooting at you, which world would you rather be living in: one in which some offical decided you couldn’t have a gun to shoot back with, or one in which you are free to keep and carry as many as you desire?
In ending, I don’t advocate that if you don’t want a gun that it should be forced on you, that is the beauty of rights, you are free to choose NOT to exercise them. So in the Safeway, if you have chosen to not have a gun and I have, also understand that I’m under no obligation to defend you, and if I see a way out without shooting or being shot at, I may well take it. And where would that leave you with the barrel of a gun in your face held by a criminal who doesn’t care about your rights, or your family. Afterall he’s about to blow your brains out, think he cares about a philosopical discussion of rights?
Nathan, you had me up until “dearie”. There’s just no way to use that word in the context of dissenting without it sounding like you’re condescending to a woman’s opinion.
Becky: I thought you knew me better than that — it was in no way meant as a demeaning expression, but rather as an affectionate sigh. I was and am still fond of Meghann, her opinions, and her attitude towards it. I think she just mightily missed the ball on that one. If you are overly sensitive to the term of endearment, then I assume you’ve had it used against you in the past in a negative light. And I do know people who use it in a patronizing manner. That was not nor ever will be my intention in a serious discussion.
I know you better. But the way the internet works is that it doesn’t know you better. And I don’t think I’m overly sensitive about the term; I know how it’s used to discredit the opinions of women as being less worthy than those of men.
Just a reminder from your friendly local feminist. Hey, maybe that’s the controversy you should tackle next.
Becky: Fair enough on the unfamiliarity, although if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I would hope you’d know that I was using that term only in a jovial manner as a part of my writing style, not as an offensive.
Feminism — whew! I suppose I could tackle that one, but I’m going to have to muse on it awhile. It’s a conflicted subject for me, and I’d want to come out with my thoughts and opinions in the right way the first time, as I have a feeling you’ll be hot on my heels. But I’m not one to shy away, so…give me a bit to compose my thoughts and I’ll get on that.
I fully support our Founding Father’s view that everyone is entitled to as many muskets as they like.