Gun Control

Well, here it is, my suggestions for making the world a safer place.

The second amendment was never intended to guarantee the individual's right to own guns or weapons. It was intended by the Framers to secure the right of a militia that could at some time overthrow a possibly corrupt government, largely as a check against their new creation of a strong central government. Inherent in that right was the right for milita members to maintain a weapons supply.

However, the current rhetoric of the NRA and others demanding unrestricted gun rights and access has no constitutional or real-world rational benifits other than these people like guns. It has already been accepted that arms can be limited, restricted and banned. I know of nobody who thinks it should be legal for the average person to be able to purchase nuclear or biological weapons, although these are arms. These arms have been and are banned and so the government has a legal precedent to limiting and banning arms.

The chief argument used by the NRA is that new restrictions only hinder law-abiding gun owners and that illegal guns will always be available to criminals. While it is unreasonable to expect the measures I propose from solving all gun-related problems, the alternative SQ of doing nothing is far worse. The Brady Bill has produced thousands of blocked gun sales. If even one of those convicted criminals would have killed an innocent person with the blocked gun, then the Bill was worth it. Is a few minutes inconvenience worth the deaths of innocent people? Try telling the families of gun deaths that.

Another argument of the NRA is that guns don't kill people, people kill people. First of all this is blatantly a lie. People, ecspecially children, die from gun accidents all the time. This is why I propose child-safety locks in my list of proposals. As for hostile-intent murders with guns. Guns make it far easier for lots of people to die. When you hear of people who go on murderous rampages, like the Atlanta tragedy, try and imagine someone doing that with a knife or club. It simply isn't possible. Assault rifles serve no purpose other than to kill human beings. If someone in the "heat of passion" is involved in a fight, if he happens to have a concealed weapon and uses it, then he will have ruined his life and the life of his victim. If he didn't have the weapon then both lives would be saved, albeit probably a little roughed up.

Another argument of the NRA is that measures like a national registration system is the first step toward the "knock on the door" where the Federal Government comes to confiscate their weapons. That is like saying that the government declaring national security information confidential and prosecuting people who divulge it is the first step toward offical banned books, book burnings and the loss of free speach. We are a republic, and if such a drastic step happened, it would be with the consent of the governed. Realistically the government doesn't have the political capital to require background checks at gun shows, if won't likely have the capital to ban all guns any time soon. This is ecspecially true when the defenders of the gun lobby, the Republican Party, is still a viable factor.

Another argument of the NRA is that guns stop millions of crimes every year by gun owners. While the statistics are probably inflated there is no denying that guns probably do stop lots of crimes. That is why I do not advocate the banning of all guns. Nowhere in this bill does it prohibit law-abiding citizens from owning guns.

When we get down to the problem, it is that guns and the gun culture are a huge facilitator for violence. We can no longer ignore that our homicide rate is a thousand times that of Japan, which doesn't allow citizens to own handguns without a special permit. Throughout the industrialized world we are unique in our homicide rates. Do other factors play a part in that? Yes. Will passing what I propose below stop it all? Definitely not. However, will lives be saved? The answer that I think every rational person who steps away from their personal political biases will come up with is yes. Is this (lives saved) justification for passing the below measures? Definitely.

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