What Will It Take?

The Founding Fathers were wrong.

There, I said it.

Rarely are the original framers of the Constitution challenged on tenets that today are trumpeted to keep intact those “rights” that are deemed “inalienable”. Such is the case with gun control and the political knife’s edge that it represents.

This past weekend’s tragic shooting in Arizona has renewed an argument that is all too common—without any tangible advancement in the way we deal with the proliferation of deadly arms in the hands of crazy people.

I get it. The Second Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, stipulates a right to bear arms. When this was conceived, citizen militias were the first line of defense and the oppression of a colonized nation by the British was a reality seen first hand by the Founding Fathers.

These same men, despite lofty platitudes about rights and equality---apparently had no misgivings about slavery or the denial of a woman’s right to vote. In short, these early leaders were not infallible—as subsequent amendments have sought to correct.

Times have changed—and the evolution of our Constitution to abolish slavery, exterminate discrimination and advance equality---- needs to now be extended to the area of gun control.

I am not against gun ownership, per se. While I don’t understand the attraction that some people have for firearms, be it for target shooting, collecting or hunting, I do respect those endeavors and believe that these—along with self defense—can be accomplished without the need for semi-automatic machine guns and other military grade weapons.

The deranged man whose killing spree was assisted by the rapid-fire capability of his weapon was an individual rejected by the Army. Yet, he was able to purchase a weapon whose use could hardly be defended by even the crafty wordsmith NRA as being for sporting or self defense purposes.

What the hell is happening here?

We’ve all heard the scare tactics of those who refuse to yield an inch. Ban guns and only criminals will have guns. I agree. So, keep the class of firearms limited to handguns and sporting guns.

Well, that won’t do---because gun advocates believe that any restriction on the type of firearm they can possess is the first step towards the government taking away our guns altogether.

That , frankly is paranoid.

How many senseless shootings will it take? How many more people will need to die—or be maimed for life like Reagan’s Press Secretary Jim Brady—before open and unrestricted access to these implements of war is stopped?

And if your argument is that the deranged nutcase who perpetrated Saturday’s shooting would still have committed murder with some other type of gun, you may be right---but the type of rapid-fire capability that created far more carnage makes even more urgent the case for restrictions.

One more life saved? Perhaps the 9 year old girl who was killed? What about HER rights?

Frankly, the NRA could make a huge stride in its our credibility by actually advocating restriction of the most heinous of weapons. They won’t, of course. To do so would take a courage and political savvy about preserving the basic rights of Americans to own firearms without appearing to pander to the fringe.

Unfortunately, the fringe represents too much of their membership. Not the law-abiding gun owner, collector or hunting enthusiast. They belong, but so too do the extreme right wing militia types, the paranoid “government is out to get us” faction, the wacko military rejects who act out their violent fantasies with weapons made for combat. They pay their NRA dues too. And the NRA is not enlightened enough to realize their affiliation with these unbalanced individuals does nothing to enhance their stature as a reasonable organization.

Keep your handguns.
Keep your hunting rifles and shotguns, your antique collectibles.

Try, however, to make a case for semi-automatic machine guns that fire 30 rounds in a few seconds. Try to make a case for why you need armor piercing bullets or hollow points, for combat-grade assault weapons---for either sporting or self defense---and your case instantly has no merit. Do we need tanks, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles or grenade launchers, too?

In a world where we cannot bring more than 4 oz. of shampoo on an airplane, we can openly purchase weapons of war that were designed and manufactured for the sole purpose of killing people—at as fast a rate as possible.

Being a Second Amendment supporter—and yet a proponent of assault weapon control—is not an inconsistent position.

The bloodshed in the U.S. due to gun violence dwarfs that of every other civilized country. We place our law enforcement personnel in grave danger daily because we have allowed these weapons to proliferate.

Is it too late to do something?

Too late for a 9 year old girl---and others, whose families will bury them this week—all because as a society, we abandoned the greater good in order to preserve the “rights” of the mentally unstable, the only segment of our society that desires to own a class of weapon whose use for sporting purposes or self defense cannot be defended.

I believe that if the Founding Fathers were alive today, they would be astounded and disgusted that their original intent on the right to bear arms would have been so horribly twisted and corrupted to favor the criminal.

Will we ever wake up?


If you’d like my blog in your box, just let me know: tim.moore@citcomm.com