President
Obama is in a unique and powerful position.
Now, while the nation is still displaying its anguish about The
Connecticut grade school shootings, is the best time to begin any changes in
gun control. He has no worries about
re-election. Many members of Congress
are lame ducks, and there is a small but steady stream of Senators reversing
their positions about firearms control.
While the
fiscal problems he is dealing with are of utmost priority, there is nothing to
prevent him opening and maintaining a national review and reworking of gun laws
in these United States. The public
really understands very little of the so-called “fiscal cliff.” It is a manufactured crisis that is more
about which branch of government will be able to tell its base to celebrate a
victory. The public may not understand
the ins and outs of gun control, but it does understand that murdering 26
children and teachers is wrong and must not happen again.
The anti-gun
lobby wants a ban on almost all guns. . The
extreme edge of the anti-gun lobby wants to round up and eliminate all guns. That
will not happen. There are millions of
legitimate hunters, target shooters, and other competition shooters who obtain
guns legally, store them safely, and use them with utmost caution. Their privileges under the law should not be
endangered.
The pro-gun
lobby wants open ownership, open carry, unregulated possession with the extremist
edge advocating private ownership of every type of firearm imaginable,
including machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, and any weapon that they can acquire.
Many of the
pro-gun people have fallen prey to the anti-government, hate group, militias,
and “take back America” propaganda.
These groups use fear of social collapse, xenophobia, anti-Islam, and
dozens of other excuses to recruit members and to expand their audience.
The primary
causation for Friday’s murders was the easy accessibility of high powered, high
capacity firearms to a person with an unstable mental status that led him to
kill. Without the weapons readily
available he would not have been able to carry out as many murders.
It should
come as no surprise that with the blood on the walls still not dry from Friday’s
murders, Saturday’s gun shows were filled with people buying every handgun and
long gun available. Ammunition dealers
are showing depleted stores as the fear of confiscation drives hoarding.
Who is at fault? The gun owner, who paid with her life, was at
fault, along with every violent movie and video game that fell into the hands
of a disturbed and/or mentally ill individual.
Add to the list of the guilty, The NRA, other gun lobbys, the
survivalists, secessionists, religious hate mongers. Don’t forget the demagogues who will stand
over the newly filled graves and proclaim that these murders happened because “God
is no longer welcome in our schools. “ They may also blame the major social and
cultural changes, such as the redefinition of marriage and women’s right; which
threaten the power and income of the churches and demagogues. We can put up with the status quo or we can
behave like civilized people around the world.
We can limit the type of guns we allow citizens to own without limiting
the legitimate hunter or target shooter’s access to the tools of his or her
sport. The 2nd Amendment
defines a privilege, not an unlimited right.
We no longer need neighborhood militias.
There is no reason to believe that a bunch of want-to-be commandos is
going to protect the nation from a “tyrannical government.” Nor will such a
group frighten or defeat any invading army.
But the
failure to enact meaningful and long lasting laws that may help decrease the
rate of gun violence lies in the hands of our legislators who take re-election
funds from gun lobbyists. It lies in the
hands of the corporations that make
movies using violence and special effects to cover a lack of plot and acting
ability; in video games that call for body counts to keep score; in paint ball
and other shooting games that let the losers reset or get up and walk away
unharmed. The John Wayne “its just a
flesh wound” myth lives on today but the victims of the NRA’s propaganda don’t.
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