Five Steps to Sensible Gun Laws in a Civil Society
By Tom Stone
December 17, 2012
As I hear some gun-rights politicians and NRA members now calling for a dialog regarding the recent school killings, I just can't help but feeling that this is just a disingenuous smokescreen in order to divert the dialog away from gun control in this country. All I have heard today is how this is a shocking development that has never occurred before now. I don't think much good of people like that. This has been an on-going problem for decades and has manifested itself in reprehensible amounts of murders, accidental killings, and pathological gun cultism.
I know that many NRA members would not agree with me and would call me a whining liberal and more. I disagree. Most NRA members are responsible people that would never consider using their weapons in a violent act on another human being. I believe that gun ownership is a right guaranteed by our Constitution. But, with gun ownership comes a level of responsibility that transcends any Constitutional right in a civil society. The sole purpose of a gun is to kill something even if it is for self-defense. Some folks have them for competitive shooting or simply as a collector's item but they are weapons in every sense. No arguments to the contrary accepted regarding that fact.
Frankly, I have no problem with people owning hunting rifles and even sidearms to be used when hunting or when in wilderness areas. However, the obsessive culture that has developed around weapons of all types has become an epidemic that is almost unique to our country. If you don't believe me, just go to a few gun shows. There are good people there but you will see too many fringe-of-society types that either own, or peddle massive amounts of weaponry. It's amazing and damned scary. It's also amazing that we don't have more gun deaths than we do with the more than 10,000 yearly that occur in the U.S.A.
How do we fix the problem? That's a task so incredibly difficult that it seems like it is insurmountable and it will require painstakingly slow and incremental steps to make sure that we do it right. The urge to act is strong at this moment but cooler heads need to prevail. I feel that sweeping changes that some propose will only result in an underground culture that would subvert the best of intentions and would give rise to a new class of criminals. Prohibition in the 1920's was an excellent example of that.
As a first step, I think that we need to re-introduce a ban on assault-style weapons. They have no purpose, period. They actually constitute a small portion of overall gun violence but the ban existed before as the Brady Bill and it should have never been allowed to lapse.
Secondly, we should require mandatory trigger locks and gun safes for any legal gun owner. This will not prevent gangs and criminals from owning guns but it will cut down on the huge amount of gun thefts that feed the black market gun trade. There are so many out there now that this would have little effect for decades but, as I said before, this is a painstakingly slow process.
Third. Legal gun ownership should have a mandatory licensing process that requires training for the gun owner but for all members of their family over the age of 10. This will hopefully cut down on many of the accidental shootings.
Number four. No hand guns allowed in families with children under the age of 10. This alone could put a major dent in the amount of accidental shootings caused by curious children who find Daddy's or Mommy's gun. Locking them in a safe is simply not enough. Anyone with kids knows that they are pros at finding things and a distracted parent will someday forget to secure a handgun properly. One child death from a found gun is one too many.
Fifth, and not really a gun law, we need to properly fund mental health care and public health care so that more people gain access to help that would normally slip through the cracks. Parents and family members are usually not the best sources of judgement when it comes to these points. They frequently ignore the problems, or hide the problems until they fester into an explosive event.
If you have managed to read this far, I applaud you. I would applaud you even more if you would take the time to call or write to your local and federal lawmakers to push them toward action instead of lethargy.
